Team Kunoichi's journey
by Rayhearth
Summary: An all Kunoichi team takes the Naruto world by storm. (eventual femNaru, Ami and SI/OC)
1. Chapter 1

"Are you coming back?"

"I do believe so. Hokage-sama is still in discussion with your otou-san about the Wave's Ninja Employment Agreement between Wave country and Konohagakure. Since I am the Chuunin in charge of negotiations, I should be sent back to bring your otou-san the final draft."

"That's good" The woman simpered. "Maybe the next time her otou-san will allow me to come to Konoha with you."

"Well, should you wish to visit Konoha, the village will certainly welcome you as befitting a woman of your rank." was the civil but flat reply.

Not missing the implication that he would not personally welcome her in the village, the woman's eyes betrayed her frustration for a short moment but it was quickly and expertly hid as though it had never been there. But not before her companion could notice it. It was such a shame that the woman was so unlikable because she sure was a beauty.

Clad in a soft-looking red kimono which contrasted nicely with her powder white skin, she looked very elegant and demure. The fabric sprinkled with white and very small dark blue flowers and her obi was burgundy-colored. Her long dark-red, nearly purple, hair framed her heart-shaped face in a complicated hairdo involving small pink pearls and a pink rose which accentuated the delicate color of her lips and brought out her pale green eyes. Of average size, she had a figure many women would kill for. Yes, there was no doubt about it, she was beautiful. But, he thought, he wouldn't enter a relationship with her unless he was ordered to.

The couple was seated on a bench in the of the Wave's Daimyō's residence. It was a rather small palace. It looked more like the type of home a minor feudal lord in Hi no Kuni would own than a Daimyō's residence but, then again, Nami no Kuni was a small and rather poor country.

And the woman knew it. Which probably explained why she was currently trying to gain his favor. While he was only the leader of a minor clan and even though he was only a fifteen years old boy, tall, gangly and barely attractive at all, he must seem like the best match the fifth daughter of the leader of one of the less powerful countries on the continent could make.

Especially considering that so few ninjas ever came or stopped in her country. A town like Konoha must have seemed like the height of sophistication. And a clan leader was a good catch.

The garden they were in was a thing of beauty. A subtle mix of mineral, plants and water created an atmosphere fit for meditation he thought temporarily lulled by the sound of running water. The huge Sakura tree in bloom and the weeping willow leaning over a rocky river created an enchanting vision.

He was far, very far, from being a poet but it certainly made him wish he was. Which truly wasn't something he thought very often. Him, a poet, right, the guys would surely laugh.

Maybe he shouldn't have slept with her, the man thought. she hadn't exactly advertised her royal origin or her ambitions at first but still, he could have kicked himself. He was usually better at reading people than that. He had wanted to have sex and she had been rather willing and pleasing to the eye. So when she had thrown herself at him in the inn he had stayed at, well, he hadn't said no.

At least, he had thought to use a ninshin han seal or anti-pregnancy seal before leaving his village. It was one of the most widely used seal that Konoha's hospital provided to shinobi and kunoichi who went on missions. Konoha didn't exactly want to have children of ninja popping all over the nations. Especially for the clan with their jealously guarded over kekkei genkai.

Having a bastard with one of the Daimyō's children would have been a source of complications he would rather do without, thank you very much!

Feeling uncomfortable with the closeness the woman was pushing him into he neatly stood up and bade her his goodbyes before returning to his inn. He had on only accepted this meeting because she had made the request in front of her otou-san and it would have been rude on his part to refuse.

Then again, maybe he should have refused anyways. It would have been poor form but he would have avoided this awkward conversation. And it had been rather poor form to sleep with the daughter of the man he was in negotiations with anyway. The man certainly didn't seem to be too pleased by his daughter's infatuation.

He was so damn lucky that time had loosened morals and traditions so much that nowadays a woman was usually considered in control of her sexuality and contraception was commonly used. Civilians used herbs to prevent conception which wasn't as affective as seal but still worked quite well. But, despite this modern view or maybe even because of it, children born outside of marriage bond were still badly judged.

Still, only a mere fifty years ago, he would have been beheaded for sleeping with the unmarried daughter of a Daimyō. Konoha wouldn't have lifted a finger to help him to prevent the cessation of talks, minor as they were. And since Nami no Kuni didn't have any ninjas to stop him, he would have become a nukenin and ended his life being purchased by hunter-nins.

Even if the girl had tricked him. Or he would have had to marry the girl if the Daimyō was particularly lenient. Neither solutions particularly appealed to him so he was really lucky, he thought glancing at his companion.

Especially since not all countries or places were as advanced. Just look at the Uchiha. There was not a more backward clan. Well, at least in Konoha. Well, the Hyūga weren't exactly much better now that he thought about it...but, at least, they didn't scorn bastards the way Uchiha did. After some consideration, he was damn lucky it happened were it did he thought finally leaving the palace.

* * *

"He didn't come back! That ugly asshole, dim-witted, disfigured, shithole, baby ninja didn't come back" raged Kokuyi-hime.

She was in a state of furor. Flapping her hands around, she was grabbing stuff from the shelves and tossing it to the ground in a near methodical manner with no regards to the servants still in the room with her.

"Kokuyi-hime, maybe you should calm down a bit, you are alarming the whole household with your screams."

An old servant tried to reason with the twenty years old woman. she was trembling slightly. she knew very well her mistresses wrath having cared for her since she was a newborn. Thus, she was also probably the only one in the room who could even attempt to try to reason with her without risking getting fired.

"Get out Hanasaki." the woman said in a deceptively calm voice. "I said get out! All of you get out! Get out!"

All the servants in the room scrambled out of the room without a backward glance. The mistress was not nice even on a good day. They had not forgotten that she had slapped a young maid so hard that the girl had fainted just a few hours before, merely for dropping one of her books to the ground. And that was when she had been in a relatively good mood. None of them wanted to stay next to her when she was in such a state. If jobs weren't so rare, especially such well-paid one's, none of them would be working for the princess.

Just as the servants were leaving, the Daimyō, followed by one of his most trustworthy adviser, came running to see what the commotion was all about. The royal guards were not far behind.

"Kokuyi, what is the meaning of this?" The leader asked seeing the ravages his daughter had caused.

A cursory glance over the room told him that it was all pretty much destroyed. What the hell could have provoked such rage? The room was in shambles. His priceless goban was broken in two with the stones scattered all over the room. His collection of crystal sculptures laid in billions of pieces on the ground. His antique desk dating to the clan wars had been overturned. One of its feet had been ripped of. And how the hell did she manage that? The desk was made of the strongest kind of wood there is!

Looking at the ugly picture his daughter made when she was angry, he sighed. He didn't know what to do with the girl. she was beautiful, graceful and learned. Any man should have wanted to marry her. But everyone had heard of her temper and no one wanted to come at her even with a ten-foot pole. All her sisters were married or had a career. Sometimes both like Matsuari. But Kokuyi dreamed only of big cities, power and riches.

He had worried slightly when she had shown such a strong interest in the ninja from Konoha who had come to broker an agreement for their Yondaime. It wasn't a treaty Konoha really cared about since Nami no Kuni was so small. But his country often needed to employ ninjas and Konoha were their only solution since Kiri was on the brink of civil war.

The agreement being so important, he had requested that the ninja in charge be changed. He had wished to avoid conflict with the Hokage's representative who had clearly not been interested in marriage despite his daughter all but throwing herself at him. Thinking about it, that was surely the reason for this bout of anger. The new ninja had arrived today.

"Kokuyi, answer me." he requested in his most stern voice. "Does it have to do with the arrival of the ninja from konoha?"

Visibly startled, his daughter looked at him. She wasn't nearly as good an actress as she thought. It hadn't been hard to see how she had fawned at the idea of a ninja clan heir coming for the negotiations and he was reasonably sure that she had seduced him. And wasn't that a thought no father wanted to have.

But the man hadn't seemed very taken by her and it had enraged her even though she had managed to keep her cool far longer than he ever thought she could. He had to give her that.

His daughter took her time to answer. He could almost see the cogs turning in her brain wondering which approach would give her the desired effect. As she glanced around the room, taking in the carnage she had created, she must have thought that the only way to get out of the situation relatively unscathed was to play the victim because tears began to form in her eyes, her shoulders dropping and her head tilting to the side slowly while inching toward the ground at the same time.

"Otou-san, he got me pregnant. He was supposed to come back and marry me. He promised. But the coward apparently wasn't man enough to own up to his actions. I need to go to Konoha and tell him that we are going to have a child."

She started sobbing quietly, the perfect picture of misery. But the image did not soften his heart at all. He knew his daughter all too well. And she underestimated him. He prepared himself to use his coldest voice to announce the decision he had been reluctant to take for the longest time. Such behavior could not be left unpunished.

"He was a ninja, my dear, and you know very well that ninja have means to protect themselves from fathering children. From what I have seen of the man, he is not the kind of person who would simply forget to take such basic measures of protection. The child is not his. I thought you were smarter than this.

Your attitude can go on no longer. You are lazy and eternally waiting for prince charming while refusing all the men around you by deeming them beneath you. You have not found a job despite my urgings and yet you continue to lap in luxury without a care in the world. This stop now. If you cannot grow up, I will force you.

Tomorrow you will be taken to a house in a nearby village where you will take up the job of secretary to a doctor. You will be given a small allowance to get you settled in for a year. Afterward you will have to provide for yourself. And your child, if there is indeed one."

He could have laughed, despite his breaking heart, at the stunned expression his daughter was making. She probably couldn't believe he was serious since he had always been rather tolerant of her.

"But...otou-san..." she mumbled. "...you can't do that. I am really pregnant with his baby. He will take care of me once he is told."

"I have stopped believing your lies a long time ago Kokuyi-chan. Ninja are really well known for putting anti-pregnancy seals on their body before missions. There is no way a ninja, especially from a clan, would leave Konoha without such basic protection."

He could see her sweet countenance breaking and the anger coming back with full force.

"I am not an idiot, otou-san, far from it. I took precautions. Even in this kami-forsaken place you can find some interesting things on the black market. Like fertility seals to negate the anti-pregnancy seals and insure conception. It cost me a dime but I found one. So yes, he is the otou-san. Of that I have no doubt."

She was sneering at him now while he looked at her aghast. Hadn't she thought of the consequences this would have on Nami no Kuni? The country depended on Konoha's ninja. They needed the protection that they could buy from Konoha.

Especially now that their neighboring country, Mizu no Kuni, was in such civil unrest. Such a thing could damage their relationship with the village hidden in the leaves if it was found out. Looking at her, he could feel no remorse for what he was going to do. He was only going to force her to earn an honest living after all.

"This changes nothing. You will go to Shirakawa tomorrow. You will be forbidden to contact anyone outside the town except through the village leader who will be instructed to pass any message you have to me first. You will raise your child yourself."

"But..."

"Enough!"

And that was it.

* * *

The next morning Kokuyi went sent to Shirakawa in a carriage with a paltry amount of belongings despite her raging protests to her otou-san, okaa-san and sisters. When she arrived to the house she had been given, she nearly strangled herself with anger at the sight of the meager abode that was to be her home.

The house was tiny. Especially compared to the palace she was used to. It was a small one story-house built in stones with clean straw on the ground and simple wood furniture. There was only a table, a large counter, two chairs, a bench in the kitchen slash living room and two rock-hard bed in the single bedroom. The windows brought enough light that it didn't look as dreary as it could have, but, all in all, it looked rather sparse.

It is in this house that she was born again seven month later, in December. She would never understand why her okaa-san did not abort her. Maybe she hoped to gain from her birth. Maybe she still thought she could manage to tell the father of her existence. Whatever the reason, she was thankful.

She left her old life at her own hand simply by jumping off a bridge. She remember the awesome rush, the immense feeling of freedom and relief but also and mostly the near-all-encompassing fear that gripped at her from her stomach to her throat, tearing a heart-wrenching scream from it.

Was she depressed? Certainly yes. But she did not end her life in a fit of despair shouting against the world that hurt her. Instead, she made the decision with a clear head, well, as clear as it can be when you are clinically diagnosed with depression.

Her depression expressed itself as longing for something more and the nearly total inability to feel emotions. And, when she did feel them, they overwhelmed. They made her cry or laugh hysterically leaving her with no control over herself and making a fool out of her. But most of the time she only felt bland. Completely, utterly bland.

Nothing had any flavor, nothing excited her, nothing interested her but reading and reading. This was the only place where she could feel in a controlled manner, without feeling overwhelmed by people and real feelings. This is where she learned to know about Naruto. Not that she was a big hard fan. Not at all. In fact, she only saw the anime pre-shippuden. The rest of the story she pieced partly together through fanfictions.

When she ended her life, she was as clear-headed as she could be these days. She made the decision as a logical conclusion to the fact that she did not belong, that she would probably spend her life longing for the easy normality most of the people felt and that she would look on as friends took jobs, gained independence while she was almost stuck to her bed feeling it immensely hard just to get out of it.

She did not wish to waste away, always letting everybody down. So she took the other way out hoping against hope that she would be reincarnated in another life where depression would not bring her down. And boy did she get lucky.

When she came out of her new okaa-san's womb was the first time she felt a difference. While hearing the shouts and insults of the woman who gave birth to her and while being slapped by the midwife to make her cry, she noticed it. And it was not the harshness of a hand against her face that made her scream but rather the warm alien feeling coursing through her veins.

She didn't know if it was the feeling of what she would later learn to be chakra that shocked her so or if it was that, for the first time since she could remember, she felt alive. Maybe it was both. she would later wonder whether depression was more connected to the body than scientists in her previous life had thought or if reincarnation somehow cleansed the soul.

But at the time she was happily screaming her heart out hoping that in this life she would be able to live life to the fullest. It is probably thank to this feeling of life that she survived her early childhood and stayed a rather happy child even if no one was around to share it with.

* * *

"Yousei like the fairies who trick you instead of bringing you what you wish for." Her okaa-san exclaimed when the midwife and the village leader asked her for her name to fill in the civil registry and make her papers. Luckily, she was next to her when she said that for it wasn't sure that she would have ever learned her name otherwise. Her okaa-san never did use it again in front of her.

* * *

The years she spent in Shirakawa were some of the wost in her life. Like you could imagine, her okaa-san was not exactly the type to dote on her. Yousei most likely wouldn't have survived were it not for her grandfather. Not that he ever came to visit or that he even wrote to her. But he undoubtedly knew his daughter, her okaa-san, well enough to know that she would not properly care for her.

So he hired a nurse who made sure her okaa-san ate enough during her pregnancy and who nursed her when she was a toddler. As soon she was born, she stopped doing anything for Kokuyi and only took care of Yousei.

She clothed and fed her. All the things her okaa-san would not do for her, the useless child. But she was only a job for the nurse. All the care she showed her was perfunctory at best. She was probably influenced by the dislike she felt for Kokuyi. It didn't change the fact that from early on in this new life, Yousei didn't know love.

Being a baby was fun in a way she would no have expected. But, she was most likely influenced by baby-body. Yousei spend most of her time sleeping and dreaming, cooing at the shadows, that the twilight brought into their home, or at the flames in the chimney.

She also smiled at the men coming into their home to see her okaa-san until she figured out that she was not taking them into her bedroom and leaving her child in the kitchen for her comfort. She had been inexperienced in her previous life but not completely clueless.

Yousei managed to walk at six months. Her first few tries were rather pitiful but fun. Dropping from such a height didn't hurt and falling on her butt became one of her silly games until she learned to walk properly. Discovering her environment and the town was much more fun.

She also found out that her body's limitations were vastly different to the ones of her previous body. With little effort she was able to bend and squirm in all directions. And, soon, she was able to master moves that she had only dreamed about in her previous life despite training as a gymnast for six years.

She had craved badly to be a real gymnast but genetics had not favored her and despite grueling exercise she had stayed stiff as a board until she finally gave up. So being able to stretch in all directions was one of her guilty little pleasures. And she spent many mornings and many afternoons of her new life doing cartwheels and other acrobatics in a clearing next to her house.

Since her okaa-san barely bothered to talk to her and her nanny wasn't there very often, she decided to stalk people around in the streets on her short legs until they broke down and talked to her to learn Japanese. When she did that to a school teacher, the women took her back home to talk to her okaa-san. After a few angry shouts mostly from her okaa-san but also from the otherwise seemingly sweet-tempered schoolteacher, she took her hand and guided her to her school.

The teacher told Yousei that she was always welcome in her classroom. Hana-sensei was probably the only adult who really cared for her even if it was only for a short time. But life went on and over the following weeks the woman was swamped with so much work that her interest in the girl waned until she only greeted her like she was just another one of her students.

For the first time in two life, Yousei was rather happy that she took so long to get close to people. Otherwise, she would probably have been devastated. As it is, it did hurt a bit not to have become one of Hana-sensei's precious people but she choose not to dwell on that. And, despite all, school kept her occupied and made her learn the oral and the written language in use here until she had a real mastery over Japanese.

She loved the school. Classes were held in a single room in a two-stories building. Hana-sensei lived in the upper level and held the village's single class on the ground floor. The building fascinated Yousei. Other houses in the village had also attracted her attention but this was the only one she could enter and thus the one she loved the best.

Strangely, she had not been allowed in the village's single bar even after she cheekily informed the bartender that she wouldn't drink anything. The man had laughed but still refused to let her enter. Too bad. Yousei would still, sometimes, sit next to the entrance of the bar and stare as some of the wildest-looking people she had ever seen entered the building.

So the school soon became her favorite building. It was a traditional Japanese wooden structure with a wooden front door. You had to take your shoes off in the little lobby at the entrance, and, in order to enter the main room, you had to go through a really nicely painted sliding door made out of paper and wood. The also wooden floor was well cared for and the children had to kneel on the floor in front of really low desks during class.

In the front of the room were several blackboards where Hana-sensei wrote the words she made her students learn, a mix of kanji, hiragana and katakana, or the calculation they had to resolve.

Since several levels were mixed up in the class, she always had varying exercises to make the children do according to their ages. Being too young (younger than six), she was not officially enrolled in the school yet. Thus, Hana-sensei did not pay as much attention to what she was doing as she did for the other students.

Yousei was off the streets, that was all Hana-sensei really cared about. It suited the girl just fine as she could learn at her rhythm by following this or that age-group. A few month after joining the school, she felt bored from following Hana-sensei's teaching and headed to the right rear corner of the room where she found some books she could now attempt to read.

This is were she discovered that the world she had been born into was Naruto's world and that the ninja games the other children were playing during recess were not like playing Indians and cowboys and more like cops and robbers. Playing ninja was not the result traditional stories told around a fire by elders about times long past. No, it was the result of a very recent and very actual fascination with real, living, ninjas. Holy shit! Breathing fire!

* * *

Yousei was four when she made the connection with Naruto. She had known about ninjas for a few months but she had not made the link with the TV-show she had seen in her previous life yet.

To her, tales of ninjas seemed grossly exaggerated and ninjas were simply normal people with battle experience that civilians gushed about while embellishing the tales to unbelievable proportions. But then she learned about the Kyuubi almost destroying Konohagakure nearly four years ago and it finally clicked. She was in a TV-show!

After a few hours pondering the meaning of life and the value of living in a TV-show, she realized it didn't matter if it was real because it certainly felt like it was. And, since she hadn't been talked about in the series, nothing was predestined for her.

Or at least, she didn't know if Kami-sama had a plan for her or not and as long as she had even the illusion of free will like she had had in her previous life that was enough for her.

The day she found out about being in Naruto's world, she was reading one the most recent history textbooks the little library her school had. Astonished she began to wonder which of the amazing feats described in Naruto were real life events and which were simply a stylistic rendering of his story where the author gave him a huge amount of power. A thousand clones at the same time? Ridiculous much?

But hearing about a hundred feet tall fox with nine tails in an otherwise seemingly serious history book convinced her to shed her doubts and reluctantly agree that the rules of her previous world meant nothing in here.

Shaken to the core, she left the building and went in one of her explorations. She walked and then ran as much and as fast as she could (which was rather impressive for a four year old girl). Her surroundings were lush with trees and various plants she knew nothing about but breathing the fresh air and feeling energized from the cool air, felt good.

After some time and after having cooled of, Yousei decided that knowing this didn't change much in the end. Except that she knew what she wanted to do now. She wasn't really enthusiastic about the idea of becoming a ninja, if she was even able to become one being born in another country and all that, but the idea of chakra made her salivate. It was almost like magic after all.

She had always dreamed of being magic. At eleven she had waited for her Hogwarts letter. At twelve she had hoped the letter was just late. At fourteen she had wished to be a charmed one and to be able to freeze people at will. Slowly she had accepted the simple truth that her old life seemed to be nothing else but mundane. So now with chakra at her fingertips, she was over the moon.

But Naruto, the anime, was not exactly a guide in how to use chakra and those, if they existed at all, weren't in her school's library. So that day, she found a small clearing in the forest around the village with a large stream running through it and sat down pondering on how to use chakra. Now that she knew about it, she could hazard a guess about the strange energy she could sometimes feel coursing through her.

Knowing it was there didn't help at all in controlling it. Meditating seemed the way to go in understanding this energy to her. But the more she tried to grasp it the more it seemed to flow away from her mental exertions. How do you move heat? You can feel heat but you can move it with the power of your mind? For that you would need a fan.

And using the power of her mind gave her no result and she had no chakra fan so she was reduced to looking at it without controlling it. Despite this, she didn't give up and everyday she spent almost an hour meditating in the forest hoping to learn control.

She wondered if being unable to learn to use chakra without guidance was the reason there were not more ninjas cropping up outside of the hidden village and outside of clans. she knew it was likely possible to learn to use it without help since Haku's okaa-san in the Naruto wave arc would certainly not have shown him how to use his kekkei genkai and he was still able to mold chakra as a child. But she didn't know how to do it.

Despite her inability to mold chakra, her meditations were not fruitless. Spending so much time feeling her own chakra she started to know it really well and after a few months she also started to become attuned to the fact that all living people had chakra. She started feeling the same energy surrounding other people and then even animals.

Yousei could not be sneaked upon by anything in the forest or anyone from the village for that matter. She could even find out the location of a bird's nest from a few feet away. She felt like she was amazing. But she still couldn't control her chakra.

Meditating also seemed to increase the amount of chakra she owned. Of course part of the increase must have come from her growing up but she didn't think that was all. Yousei had a surprisingly large reserve of chakra compared to the people she came in contact with. It was the first time she really wondered about her otou-san and whether she had inherited that from him.

* * *

Her okaa-san had only told Yousei of her otou-san in the most derogatory terms she could find. Or rather, she could be found ranting about him when she had had a bit too much to drink and unsurprisingly that was quite often. So one night, when she was in a mellow mood thanks to the few cup of sake she had already knocked back, the girl questioned her about him. She was told he was a bastard, a heartless, ugly shit and yadda, yadda, yadda.

But she also gave her daughter his name. She told her that he was a ninja from Konohagakure and that she had tricked him by using an uncommon seal to impregnate herself. The tiny girl was elated.

Despite everything, Yousei had dreamed about this second otou-san. She hadn't wanted to think that someone else had rejected her so early in her new life. The truth was that he simply didn't know of her and not that he he hadn't wanted her. And he was a ninja. Sugoi!

After this discussion, her okaa-san started noticing her more. But the fact that she was so advanced for her age did not endear Yousei to her. On the contrary, every time she noticed that her daughter was a really advanced child, she ranted at her. Sometimes she walloped her for no reason. Just because she was there. Her okaa-san also decided she was fit for cheap labor, like cooking her meals or cleaning the house.

Since the nanny only made food for the girl and stayed to watch her eat it everyday, Yousei had never worried for food. And that was really lucky since she' wasn't quite sure her okaa-san would have bothered to feed her properly otherwise.

Three months after having questioned her okaa-san, everything changed. With the latter's growing notice of her existence and with the slaps and the hurtful words also came the strange calculating stares she sometimes bestowed upon her.

Yousei didn't understand what her okaa-san was looking for but instincts and experience told her it couldn't be anything good. So she tried her best to stay clear of her as much as possible, only coming back to the house to sleep and eat, and when she couldn't avoid it.

One evening she was trying to fall asleep on her cot in the kitchen when her okaa-san went to the front door and let a man enter. It was nothing unusual since the same thing happened every once in a while especially when merchants caravans stayed in the village's outskirts on their way to the capital.

But this time, while she was faking being asleep like usual, her okaa-san did not bring him in her room but towards her cot. Tensing ever so slightly, she partially opened her eyes to look at them.

The man was a tall obese man clad in rich brown furs and green robes with several expensive-looking rings on his hands. He was bald with small squinting eyes and large bags under them. His huge cheeks were dangling from his face. And he was leering at her six years old self.

Instantly on guard, she opened her eyes further to glance at her okaa-san who was telling him to go on with an ugly twisted smile. The man came closer to her and crouched on the floor. He gathered enough courage to extend his arm. As soon as he started slowly caressing her face, she jumped on her feet as fast as she could and threw a kick at his face. She was quick and he was taken by surprise. He didn't react at all, overbalanced and fell over on his butt.

Her okaa-san was furious. She tried to grab and to slap her but Yousei was too light on her feet. Jumping on the man, she evaded the older woman and was across the room in a few seconds. She opened the door, turned back slightly to stare at her okaa-san and wonder how she could have fallen so far as to pimp her own daughter and then she was gone, running as fast as she could towards the school which had been her haven for the last two years.

Banging on the school door, she woke Hana-sensei. Her frightened face must have softened the teacher and the young woman tried to take the girl in her arms. Gently Yousei pushed them away. She had never particularly liked being touched in either of her lives and the Incident certainly wasn't going to help that.

The adrenaline wearing off and the shock kicking in, she started sobbing her heart out. A really ugly feeling rose inside her making it hard to breathe for a moment before Hana-sensei shuffled her inside the classroom asking her what was wrong. She explained to her that her okaa-san had brought a man, who had tried to touch her inappropriately, home.

Hana-sensei was incensed. Looking the girl over, she decided to bring her upstairs in her apartment and tucked her in her own bed while she went out to rise the village's leader up.

Yousei would later find out that both of them had immediately gone to see her okaa-san with a few other men from the village as manpower. They had brought her into the town hall to put her in Shirakawa's one and only holding cell. The merchant had predictably vanished before the men arrived and his carriage had disappeared with him in the middle of the night.

But in the morning, tempers had cooled down. While Hana-sensei was feeding her breakfast and starting class to make the girl feel as normal as possible, Yousei's okaa-san was explaining to the village leader that it was all a misunderstanding, that the child was too young to understand what had happened and that she was so worried for her.

Her okaa-san had a reputation in town so Yousei was pretty sure no one quite believed her. But since nothing had really happened, they also had no proof other than the words of a six year old girl who, as bright as she was, was not a reliable witness.

This is why they forced Hana-sensei to release the girl into the ever loving care of her okaa-san. Child protective services were not quite as developed in the small town as one could have hope hoped. They did keep a really close eye on her and her okaa-san over the next few days but otherwise, they did nothing.

* * *

After this incident Yousei decided that she wouldn't stay in Shirakawa a moment longer than she absolutely had to.


	2. Chapter 2

Her okaa-san kept away from Yousei in the days following the Incident. Since the girl could leave on her runs and go to school as though nothing had happened, for a long time it really felt like nothing had happened.

Sometimes she would even find herself wondering if she had not indeed blown things out of proportions. Only the fact that even looking at her okaa-san sent her in a panic convinced her that it was not just her mind playing tricks and that she should get away before anything else happened.

#

When her okaa-san started talking about moving to another village, she knew it was time to cut her losses. She decided that she wanted to leave for Konoha to find her otou-san.

Even if he did not welcome her, Konoha was big enough to have an orphanage where she could live while trying to get into the ninja Academy, if she could.

Leaving Shirakawa was both easier and harder than she had imagined.

It was easier because while looking through her okaa-san's stuff she found a lot of cash. The older woman's decision to move out of Shirakawa probably wasn't as spontaneous as Yousei had thought at first. And, the Incident had probably been a way to achieve her goal a lot faster. Truthfully, the girl didn't care anymore beyond the fact that it made leaving that much easier. She pinched a huge amount of it leaving her okaa-san barely enough to survive until her next payday, for her day job that is.

Afterward, she rummaged through the older woman's closet for make up and a backpack. Going into the kitchen next, she filled her bag with as much fruit, piece of dried meat and meatloaves as well as a flask that she filled with water. Taking her meager belongings, a few trousers, tops and a coat, she left in the early morning just after her nanny had come and gone and after her okaa-san had left for her job as a secretary.

#

No one would notice she was gone until the next morning. It wasn't unusual for her to miss a few meals when she was lost in her wanderings and her okaa-san certainly wouldn't care if she didn't come home for the night. Her nanny would probably start to worry the next morning and but she would only raise the alarm at midday when she didn't see her charge for yet another meal.

She left running toward the sea. The closest way to get to Kosuguri, the harbor that could take her to Hi no Kuni, was to follow the Omiwa River south up to the point where it threw itself into the ocean. There was a the road going the length of it and leading to the town. But, not wanting to get caught, she followed the road by walking a few meters in the forest parallel to it.

And, that was when Yousei realized that traveling to Konoha would be, and by far, more difficult than she had imagined it. She had been an active child. She used to run around in the forest, jumping a lot, doing multiple somersaults, double somersaults, handsprings in rows and stretching for a few hours everyday. But never before had she tried to walk for more than a few kilometers a day.

#

There were nearly sixty five kilometers between Shirakawa, in the north-west of Nami no Kuni and Kosuguri in the south of the Isle. And, she had not realized that as a six years old she wouldn't walk at an average speed of five kilometers per hours but only at an average speed of two point five kilometers per hour.

It nearly doubled her traveling time. Also, after walking for only six hours she was completely knackered, especially since she was carrying a backpack which was heavy for her. In the end it took her six days to reach the harbor and she longed for a real bed and a hot bath.

She was only thankful that it was summer because it didn't rain at all. She could sleep in the forest without having to too much worry about. The air was really warm but not scorching. The water from the river was a bit cold but it helped relax her cramping muscles in the evening and enabled her to refill her flask and to have fresh water to cool down.

She almost gave up on the third day. She was tired, cranky, sore as hell and the path seemed to never end. She only wished to hail one the carriage driving at full speed to carry her. But she knew they would send her back to her okaa-san and the simple idea of seeing her hateful face again helped the girl recover her strength back.

On the fourth day, she very nearly had to give up. A merchant's caravan passed her by. They didn't notice her as she was far away from the road but she could hear the racket they made with the dogs barking, the people shouting and laughing and, the horses neighing...

One very aggressive dog sniffed her position out, started barking like mad and advancing slowly towards her. Her heart very nearly gave out then. To the tiny girl, the dog seemed ginormous and his teeth, oh god, his teeth... She nearly shouted from fright but, and she didn't know how, she managed to refrain and, luckily, his owner called him back before the animal could pounce.

She called herself stupid at that moment. Of all the things to forget, she had not taken a knife. All the food she had could be eaten without a knife and she not thought to take one for another purpose. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. And she had been a scout in her previous life. Always prepared, my ass, she thought.

On the sixth day, at midday and shortly before entering Kosuguri, she took out a small mirror she had stolen from her okaa-san and some makeup. Carefully, she applied various products to her skin to make her look horribly disfigured and scarred. Taking out clothes from her backpack, she started to hide some under her shirt to make it look like she was hunchbacked and deformed.

In the end she looked like a teenage dwarf whose lot in life had been pretty harsh. When you added the stench of sweat and filth, she was pretty sure no one would pay too much attention except to find her disgusting and pity her. No one would believe her to be a young girl. Hidden in plain sight. Pretty clever, no? Well, at least, she thought so.

Kosuguri was very unlike what she had been accustomed in this life. First, it was much bigger than Shirakawa. She knew that it was nothing compared to the size of some of the cities she had known in her previous life. But, in this life, the town seemed huge to her.

The city was bustling with life. People were coming from all directions, all seemingly busy. There were well-off merchants mingling with poor ones, nobles mingling with commoners. Heading toward the market after asking for directions, she bought herself some ramen at a stand and watched over the activity with wide eyes.

People were walking, in the aisle of the market, in a strange mix of multicolored clothes of obvious Asian origin. The market in itself was also filled with strange foods she had never heard of before. She could see, from where she was seated, something green and slimy called Caulerpa lentillifera which, on further inspection, were advertised as sea grapes and were probably some type of green alga. Another stand was selling something called Hirayachi which vaguely looked like a salted pancake and smelled wonderful.

Having finished lunch, she strolled down the aisle to replenish her food stores. With profound regret she didn't buy any of the Hirayachi knowing she had no way of keeping it fresh. She only made sensible purchase and refrained from buying too much. Reluctantly, she left the area and headed toward the harbor. Due to her small stature, people kept bumping into her and after a small grimace, moved aside, not wanting to be in the same vicinity as such a horrible looking person. It made her smile. She refrained very hard from saying 'booh' to see if they would jump.

#

After a short trip through some of the dirtiest streets of the town, Yousei managed to reach the docks. Quickly locating what seemed to be the immigration and embankment office, she headed toward a modern-looking building and entered through an arch and into a small courtyard. Walking to the doors on the left, she joined the line of people waiting to pay for their fares. After a two hours wait, it was finally her turn. A thin and tall man, a bit rough around the edge greeted her. After a cursory glance at the forms she had filled out for the immigration office, he looked up at her.

With a disgusted grimace at her grotesque appearance, he quickly took her papers and stamped them without even checking the information. Which was lucky for her since she didn't even have to try to find an explanation as to what a six year old girl was doing crossing the ocean by herself. With her fare for the ship, she headed back to the town center to find some lodging for the night.

In what probably was one of the seediest tavern she could have found, she found a warm bed and relatively nice meal for the evening. Yousei took everything in with wide curious eyes. Holy Kami, it was fun. The main room was filled with drunk sailors singing their hearts out and overflowing mugs of beer, onion beer, a specialty of the region, were being handed out by two young but tired- looking maids who did theirs best to avoid wandering hands. She watched for a couple of hours before resigning herself to go to sleep in her room.

The girl woke up at five with the sun shining on her bed. Taking the time to clean herself up a bit with a small cloth dipped into the running water, she carefully reapplied her disguise and went down the stairs. Bidding farewell to the innkeeper, she found her way back to the harbor. Looking at the small ships, she steered herself toward the dock where hers was moored. It didn't look like much and was barely a step up above a barque. It was probably only a ferry bringing people from Kosuguri to Hinokuchi, in Hi no Kuni, and back several times a day. She had been too late yesterday to travel to the other side of the small strip of water.

Embarking, traveling and disembarking took no more than two hours max. The ocean had been shrouded in a deep mist the whole way which made the trip much less enjoyable than it could have been. Staring the whole way at water and at a fog patch was kind of boring. Disappointingly, Hinokuchi looked pretty much the same as Kosuguri. She had hoped for a bit of variety but the buildings, the streets and the harbor were almost a mirror image from one another. Luckily she wasn't planning on staying for long.

She was, in fact, very lucky since a merchant's caravan was leaving for Otafuku Gai the very next day. She didn't want to travel alone to the hidden leaf village. She wasn't even sure that she could manage it. The owner of the caravan, a short, round and energetic woman, Miharu-sama, took pity on her and let her to tag along for a small fee. The girl was allowed to sit in one of the horse-drawn carriage instead of walking because the leader didn't want her to slow them down.

#

It took them forty days (counting the stop-over to unload and upload merchandises) to travel nearly one thousand kilometers across Hi no Kuni and reach Konoha at an average speed of five kilometers per hour, eight hours a day when they were not stopping in various village to do business. A ninja would probably have done it in under five days if they were running.

It was also her first meeting with shinobi since Miharu-sama had hired a ninja team as an escort. It was also her first real contact with characters that she knew were from the Naruto series. She took it as a welcome confirmation of the fact that she was in his reality.

The team was probably made up of a jounin and three genin since there was an adult looking man and three preteen. She first recognized them through their headband sand the uniform the adult was wearing. The jounin was obviously a Inuzuka clan members. He looked too much like Kiba with the wild brown hair, the red markings under the eyes and the huge talking dog scampering around him.

One of the genin, a blond haired, blue-eyed boy was wearing a light blue t-shirt and white shorts. The only thing that showed he wasn't simply strolling around on a beach was the weapons pouch strapped to his right leg. And the fact that there was no beach...obviously...

The other genin was very pale and had dark straight hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a fan on the back and black shorts. She recognized the symbol of the Uchiha clan but it was the third genin who sparked her memory.

She was tall, had long, straight brown hair with two thin strands falling on her face and partially covering the red markings on her cheeks that marked her as a member of the same clan as her sensei. She was wearing black shorts and a black jacket coming up to her chin. The six years old girl probably wouldn't have recognized her were it not for the three puppies who had taken to following their friend around yapping and jumping around. She was obviously Inuzuka Hana, Kiba's sister, whom Yousei did not remember seeing in the anime but that she had heard about in fanfictions.

She didn't interact at all with the ninja however much she wanted to because she was too afraid of being found out and sent back to her okaa-san. Although her disguise had held up against civilians, she had no intention of finding whether it would hold out against the scrutiny of a ninja. So she kept mostly to herself and tried not to gawk at them too much. But since she was certainly not the only civilian in awe, well, she didn't let it bother her too much.

And when bandits attacked the convoy, it was so amazing that she didn't let it bother her that she was almost gushing at them. Especially since she was particularly distracted by the trails of blood the bandits left behind as they retreated. The highwaymen had turned tail without further ado as soon as they understood that the convoy was protected by ninjas. The Uchiha had managed to knock one of the scoundrels up but he was picked up by a comrade who brought him out of harm's way.

In the end, the ninja had barely done anything, just roughed the bandits up a bit, broken a few nose and stabbed one man in the tight. Their simple presence had been enough of a deterrent.

But she was impressed and pathetically glad that there had been no deaths. Fortunately, the ninjas had not even tried to pursue and bring the men down. She wouldn't wanted for the first ninjas she ever met to stay in her memories as merciless killers. Yousei was most likely partially in denial about the ninja life. But she was six so sue her!

#

After that incident, the caravan traveled safely through many town, sold a few things and unloaded some stuff and uploaded others. In Shiroyama Gai, halfway through the trip, a man who presented himself as a poet, singer, dancer and actor joined the caravan where he was welcomed with open arms and didn't even have to pay any charges like she had had to do. He was only asked to entertain the members of the convoy. It made for a much more pleasant journey.

Whereas before the trip had been boring, Masaki-sensei made it fun to travel. Every day the group could hear him practicing his songs on his 13-stringed koto and every evening he made them sing popular song, sang some epic ballads, recited his poems or performed short plays for them.

When he left for another town ten days after he had joined the caravan, they were all sad to see him go. And afterward the trip regained its monotony.

The trip was made all the more stressful and tiring by the fact that she was nearly constantly on guard. She tried not to mingle too much lest they discover her deception. She took care not to wash up too close to the caravan and didn't allow herself to run around too much.

Every night she went to sleep in a corner of a chariot making sure she was hidden from sight. And every morning, she carefully reapplied the makeup covering her face. She even refrained from meditating and feeling her chakra afraid that even that would alert the shinobi team to her presence. It took a lot out of her. She was thus very relieved to reach Otafuku Gai.

Yousei had found out that Otafuku Gai was close to Konoha and that had made her choose this town as her destination. Saying goodby to Miharu-sama and to the rest of the caravan was hard even thought she had not really mingled with them. But in this life, it was one of the rare time where she had been treated well and in a respectful manner and that, despite the fact that she looked positively repulsive.

The girl had enjoyed the simple camaraderie that existed between the many employees hired by Miharu-sama and was saddened to leave it behind for the unknown.

#

As soon as she left the convoy, she backtracked out of the town until she was sufficiently hidden from eyes by trees. There, she used the water in her flask to take the makeup off her face. She also took the clothes forming a bump on her back from under her jacket and changed in relatively clean clothes. Putting everything back in her backpack, she headed for the town again.

Once there, she tried to find an inn to sleep for the night. After embarrassing herself by trying to enter a brothel she had mistaken for an inn, she finally found a nice and relatively quite one. In the room, she took advantage of the hot water to wash away the grime of the long trip. Immediately feeling better, she took the time to comb her hair thoroughly enjoying the feeling of her long soft hair being free for once.

Since the room was quite large, she was also able to stretch a bit. It felt like heaven to get back into a semblance of a routine. Afterward, she ate downstairs while enjoying the communal feeling of the inn's main room. But glad for the silence, she soon got back upstairs to enjoy some meditation. Feeling her chakra again after more than a month was really nice and she guessed that Otafuku-Gai was a common destination for ninjas because she could feel no less than two shinobi and one kunoichi in the hotel she was sleeping in and the one next to it. Her chakra sensing range was good enough to cover the two building which made her really proud for a moment before realizing that she didn't know whether it was impressive or not compared to what real ninjas could do.

#

The next morning, she was feeling anxious and restless. Filling her backpack with trembling hands, she tried to control her jitters. Taking in a long breath, she kept the air in for a whole minute before letting it all out. Not really feeling better and knowing that she would manage nothing by staying stuck to the ground, she started moving and left the inn.

Walking the last twelves kilometers to reach Konohagakure was a torture. Like a mirage, the end seemed always a bit further away. It took her five hours with her short legs. Seeing the walls of the village was a wonderful thing. She almost couldn't believe she had successfully made the trip. It was nearly unbelievable. She would have never achieved such a trip in her previous life. And here, she had done it as a six years old.

She felt tears pooling when she first saw the huge round and red wall surrounding Konoha. In a way it made everything, especially her own existence, feel more real. At the doors, she could see the two shinobi standing guard looking at her strangely. They were probably wondering what a near-toddler was doing all alone coming to Konoha.

#

Approaching the immigration stand, she showed them her papers. They were both in uniform. One of them was a teenager. He had long brown hair and white eyes with no pupil, obviously a Hyūga. Indeed, he momentarily activated his byakugan most likely to detect the use of genjutsu or henge, she thought.

The other one was a few years older. He had short-cropped brown hair and brown eyes with a wicked-looking hachiwara, a small blade, as a side arm. Both were looking at her incredulously after the Hyūga confirmed she was really who she seemed to be. They started questioning her in that irritating baby voice grown up sometimes took around small children.

"Hello little girl. Where are your parents?" the non-identified guard asked her in a disgustingly sweet voice.

She wanted to kick him.

"I am going to try to meet my otou-san for the very first time. And I'm here on her own. Why, shinobi-san, do you have a problem with that?" She answered in the rudest tone she could manage. Which probably wasn't really smart, but, Holy Kami, she was having fun.

"But, you're like, three or something!"

Staring him down with her best glare, she asked him if there were going to let her enter Konoha anytime soon. The looked at each other, shared an unnerved glance before hesitating and after the Huyga looked at her chakra pathways again and said that they looked rather big for a civilian (she preened at that), they decided that she was an unknown and maybe they should consult with one of their superiors?

The Huyga held his hand out but she stubbornly refused to take it. Then, he guided her through the streets to the Hokage tower, showing her the sights a bit, having regained his cool composure.

Keeping a close eye on her, he steered her through what looked like the Mission Assignment Room according to a huge banner hanging from the ceiling. An old man was seating in the middle of the room behind a huge table with several ninja, also seating, next to him on either sides.

In front of each ninja, on the other side of the table, a few shinobi were waiting in line. But there were none waiting in front of the old man. She had determined him to be the Sandaime from his white and red coat and weird-looking hat.

#

Her guide brought her directly in front of the Hokage who raised his eyes to look questioningly at his subordinate after giving her a cursory glance. Hyūga-san bowed and she clumsily followed suit. Then, Yousei started to talk without being given leave and before her guide could utter a single sound.

"Hokage-sama, I come from Nami no Kuni in search for my otou-san who is a shinobi in your service, or, at least, he was seven years ago. I am hoping to meet him and live with him since my okaa-san is unfit to be a okaa-san. If he is unwilling or unable to take care of me then, I would like to respectfully request to be allowed to enter an orphanage in Konoha and eventually join your ninja Academy."

As soon as the last words came out of her mouth, she felt like she could have kicked herself. She always wanted to put the cart before the horse. She should have waited before asking to be a shinobi.

Asking now, in such a public place, without even knowing how her otou-san would react to having a daughter was not the best way to achieve her goal. Kuso... She should have shown more restraint, she thought to herself noticing a few ninjas visibly trying to listen to their conversation.

At least her visible regret at having put her foot in her mouth seemed to amuse the old man who chuckled visibly before gesturing at her to follow him, waving her guide away and steering her first toward stairs and then toward his office. The room seemed huge and not just because she was tiny. The Kage made her sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk before sitting in a chair he situated right in front of her and started asking her questions.

"Could you expand on what you told me downstairs, please" he asked her in a soft voice not wanting to frighten her.

#

And so she told him, everything. Well, everything except for the memories of another world that is. She wasn't stupid, thank you very much. She told him about her okaa-san tricking her otou-san to get pregnant, how her own otou-san had banished her,, how her jiij had helped her but never came to see her, how she met Hana-sensei, how the teacher had cared and yet not and how that had hurt very much.

She told him how she liked to jump and run, how her okaa-san tried to hurt her, about the kicks, the wallops and the Incident, how the villagers hadn't really helped her and how much she liked chakra.

She also told him about her decision to leave Shirakawa, how she disguised herself, how she went to Kosuguri and then took a ship for Hinokuchi, how she met Miharu-sama, left with her caravan, how meeting ninja had been so cool. She told him how she had really liked Masaki-sensei, the poet, how badass the shinobi had been when they defeated the bandits, how she was happy no one had been killed, she told him about leaving the caravan at Otafuku Gai to take her disguise of and walking to Konoha and how she met two boring shinobi at the village's entrance and how one of them had freaky eyes but he had said she had a lot of chakra so he was okay, how he had brought her to see him because he was important and could she, please, become a ninja and meet her otou-san...

Despite the fact that she had rushed through her story at breakneck speed, the man didn't seem to have had any difficulties understanding her. The man kicked back in his chair as soon as she was finished, deeply in thoughts.

She couldn't really read him but she could guess what he was thinking. It wasn't really difficult to check on her story.

He only had to ask her otou-san if there was any possibility he could have gotten anyone pregnant when he had gone on his diplomatic mission to Nami no Kuni seven years ago. In other words, had he slept with the princess?

Then the Kage could send a ninja to meet with their ally Nami's Daimyō who would confirm her story, and maybe also look into her life in Shirakawa. He could also interrogate the shinobi team who had protected the caravan.

All in all, it was really easy to retrace all her steps to see if she really was who she said she was. Then, if it existed in this world, he could make a DNA test with her otou-san.

#

Having obviously reached a conclusion, the old man looked her over before standing up, walking to the door and hailing his secretary. He asked her to summon team three, most likely the team she had met before, to his office as well as her otou-san for ten minutes later.

Then he came back to her and offered her a glass of water (and did he want to get her DNA or was she paranoid?) and some of the cookies lying around in a plate on his desk. He started to chitchat with her (trying to find a hole in her story or was she REALLY paranoid?).

What was her favorite color? Green. Did she like Konoha so far? Yes it was really big, really nice and really colorful, he liked that. How did she learn to use chakra. She didn't? Well it was still impressive that she could meditate and sense people so well. What did she like to do in school? Reading stories. Did she miss anyone in Shirakawa? Not really, no. Why did she want to get into the Academy? Because she wanted to learn all about chakra. Was she anxious about meeting her otou-san? Yes, a lot.

#

After five minutes of not so pointless chatter, team five arrived in the room. They looked exactly the same as when she had left the convoy. Did they never wash or something? The Hokage asked them about the little hunchbacked person that had traveled with them from Hinokuchi.

Obviously very confused by the line of questioning, the jounin answered while Yousei stayed quietly in her chair not drawing any attention to herself. Inuzuka Tadayoshi, the jounin told his leader that that there had indeed been a dwarf in the caravan since Hinokuchi, that he had been quiet, a bit in awe of shinobi but had mostly kept to himself and he had no further information. The genin didn't have anything to add so the Hokage let them go.

The Sandaime gave her a pondering glance she didn't quite understand before there was another knock on the door and her otou-san walked in. He didn't look at all like she had imagined. He was much more real than the anime character that had been stuck in her head ever since she had found out his name.

#

He was tall, like really tall. And huge. His really large shoulder were only emphasized by the large the military grey-blue button-up shirt, the black trench-coat and the heavy combat boots. Even at twenty her otou-san was impressive. And scary, thought Yousei. The huge scar was not exactly making him seem all that approachable at first glance. His head was covered with a blue clothe and his headband was fastened on it and placed on his forehead. His dark-grey eyes seemed to burrow into her soul.

Somehow, when she had daydreamed about him, she hadn't imagined him to be quite as scary. But here, she could see how he managed to become one of the best interrogators of Konoha. Not that she was supposed to know any of that.

Yousei wondered what it would be like to live with a man like Morino Ibiki before shrugging the thought off lest she scare herself. She live one day at a time and see how it turned out without anticipating too much. She would go crazy otherwise.

#

He was most likely wondering why he had been called into the Hokage's office. Unless he was figuring out for himself, Yousei thought as she caught him furrowing his brow and watching her very attentively.

She looked very much like her okaa-san after all. With her almost dainty figure, her powder white skin and dark-red hair, she looked like the woman in miniature. Only her light grey almond-shaped eyes were different. Watching her otou-san's face again, she absently noticed that she had inherited them from him. Had he figured out who she was?

Probably, she thought when he tore his eyes away from her to look questioningly at his leader.

#

The Hokage had likely made a note of the reactions of his usually impassive chuunin because his first question was:

"Do you recognize her Ibiki?"

"Hai!" was the curt and nearly rude reply from the imposing figure. Not undeterred in the least, the Sandaime pursued in his line of questioning.

"How?"

"She looks surprisingly similar to a woman I met during one of my mission seven years ago."

"Then you know who she is?" Ibiki cringed slightly. Yousei had a feeling it didn't happened very often if she could infer that from the light chuckle the Kage had emitted as though he was tremendously entertained.

"I can guess although I do not understand the logistic of it."

Th Hokage let out a real laugh this time. It probably wasn't all that often that the interrogator floundered so visibly.

"Do I have to explain it to you Ibiki? Although, considering who she is, I would have thought you had already learned this lesson."

Trying to regain his lost dignity, Ibiki started speaking again.

"Hokage-sama, you know very well it wasn't meant in that way. I never take my anti-conception seal. Even in the village. It shouldn't have happened unless it was faulty but none of the medic-nin ever reported a faulty batch of seals for the last forty years."

"Indeed, apparently, it was not your seal which was faulty. Your partner had apparently wished to trap you into marriage by giving you an heir. How trite!"

Yousei winced at that. It was true but still...

"She managed to procure a seal to counter yours and someone to activate it to insure her success. Nami no Kuni's Daimyō was made aware of the truth and proceeded to banish her and stop her from contacting you in order to preserve his country's relationship with Konoha by preventing a scandal.

Apparently, your daughter..." and at that both looked at the little girl with no small interest "...is rather resourceful and rather than stay with her unfit mother decided to travel on her own to find you. It seems her mother has fallen far, very far indeed,..."

#

The Kage then proceeded to recount the story he had been told earlier by the little girl while Ibiki fixed Yousei with his eyes cataloging her face and her reactions with a thoughtful gaze.

"And now, Ibiki, I have to ask you. What do you intend to do? You did not ask for the responsibility but it is here nonetheless, so what will you do? Yousei-chan here has already said that she would like to go to an orphanage in Konoha should you refuse to take her in and I am inclined to agree to her request."

"I'll take her in." It was said in a strong unwavering voice which left Yousei elated. She finally had a real otou-san, a real parent.

#

Gesturing at the tiny girl to follow him, Ibiki looked at her when she timidly held her hand out to reach his. Complying with her nonverbal demand, he took her small hand in his all with such a strange face that he was probably wondering what the hell he was going to do with a child.

Stuck in place as though he didn't know what to do, he took some time to regain his calm before tensely informing the Hokage that he was going to take the rest of the day of.

"Take two days, Ibiki. You'll need it." was the answer he got. It was said with a fond look. The Sandaime was looking at the strange picture that the dainty young girl made, dwarfed by the imposing figure of her too stiff otou-san with a smile before asking them to leave and to inform his secretary that he was now free to do some paperwork.

Ibiki brought his daughter out of the Hokage tower before stopping for a moment with her hand in his.

"Otou-san?" The girl wondered aloud with such obvious relish in her voice at saying the words for the first time that Ibiki cracked a smile.

"Where are we going?"

"Home."

The girl visibly brightened at that. The tall man started walking at a fast pace nearly dragging the girl behind. She started to jog next to him her hips-reaching red-hair flying behind her. Seeing this, he tried to resume a normal pace. Walking through the busy streets of Konoha didn't take much time and soon he brought the girl to his home.


	3. Chapter 3

The two-story house was made out wood. The walls were painted white except for the dark brown beams placed at the corners and around the door. A large one meter band of lovely pale brown, nearly yellow paneling covered the bottom part of the house and of the next story where the panel was smaller by half. The light grey tiles added a nice touch.

The house was situated in the middle of the village just out of the city center. Despite it being resolutely urban, the house had a medium-sized garden behind it with a small pond. It wall kept with luxuriant vegetation. She could barely see the town from where she stood.

It was not exactly the type of home she had imagined her otou-san to live in. He had seemed more like a single room flat, devoid of any personal effect, type. Then again, the Morino were a small clan. So maybe this was his family home. She was positively thrilled to be living in such a house. Her reaction did not escape the older man smirked a bit.

"Didn't expect that, did you?"

Giggling a bit, Yousei shook her head to say that no, she hadn't expected that. The inside was everything she had ever dreamed for a house. Ibiki invited her to enter, to leave her shoes in the genkan, the entryway, and to put on some warm-looking slippers. She wondered at the pale tatami mats covering the floor for a moment before looking around.

The ground floor was composed of one single room with a few colorful, leaves-patterned, shōji screens, sliding doors that let the light go through it made from thin wood and paper, partitioning a small section in the left-hand front corner. Curious, she ran to see what it was hiding. It turned out to be an office of sorts. Turning back, she took a closer look at the huge room.

There wasn't much furniture, a dinning room table on the right side with cushions around it with a door in the wall, most likely the kitchen, a small table with clutter-filled wicker basket on top at the entrance, a hearth in the ground on the left side behind the small partitioned room with a few red-colored mats laid out around it and a large teapot help by some weird metal things she could not identify.

The walls giving into the garden was made out of glass with shōji screens partially opened. It was then that Yousei wondered how the house had survived the Kyuubi attack or if it hadn't and had simply been reconstructed but she didn't ask.

#

Her otou-san urged her to take the stairs on the right side of the main entrance to get upstairs. While the ground level had been resolutely traditional, the upper level was more modern-looking despite the tatami mats on the floor and the very light brown wooden paneling covering the bottom half of the white walls. There were four doors.

The walls were not made out of shōji screens but rather of paint-covered wooden walls, probably to allow the inhabitants to have some real privacy that paper screen could definitively not give.

Letting herself be guided by the hand behind her back, Yousei walked into a nicely sized room with large windows. It was completely empty beside a large closet and a door.

Jogging to see what was behind, she opened it and saw that it was a bathroom with a toilet, a shower and a sink. Closing the door she looked as her otou-san took a futon out of the closet and laid it out on the. With the sun shining through, the room had a nice airy feeling that pleased her immensely when she was told that it would be her bedroom.

"Come downstairs when you have finished freshening up. Put your clothes away in the closet. Any dirty clothes can be put in the large basket in the corridor. I will wash them this evening in the laundry room."

At her questioning glance, he added. "There is a room next to the kitchen with a washing machine and a dryer." She could see how it could be a necessity to have something like that for a ninja.

#

Quickly doing as she was told, she took a small shower, put all her clothes and her dirty backpack in the basket outside of her room before rushing down to meet with her otou-san.

Not seeing him in the living-room, she searched for him in the kitchen where she found him preparing lunch. He looked up at her arrival, took in the fact that she had put on the same clothes that she had worn before, he started to talk.

"Right, I guess I know what we're doing this afternoon." It was said in such an acerbic tone that Yousei lowered her eyes to the ground, her eyes starting to pool.

"Don't cry." Ibiki ordered. "I apologize for the tone, it was uncalled for. It is not your fault and I don't want you to act like it is. Eyes up front now. And sit at the table" he barked out.

Bravely raising her eyes up, she went to sit at a small western-styled table in the middle of the kitchen. Having finished cooking, Ibiki took out two plates from one of the cupboards and put them on the table. Then, he served them some kind of salad.

"Eat up, girl."

#

Shopping with her otou-san was strange, mused Yousei. He was tall and rather scary. People gave him a wide berth when he walked. And, in the shops for children clothing, the sales assistants, mostly women, did the same until they saw him offering me tiny-sized kimono, pants and shirts.

Then they melted. Suddenly he wasn't so scary, he was endearing. They cooed at me and flirted lightly with him taking no umbrage at his growing scowl. Guess he had never dreamed that having a kid was such a chick-magnet. Yousei couldn't stop giggling when she saw it happening and even emphasized on the cute factor to see the woman scrambling to take care of the ruggedly handsome dad of an adorable little girl.

And didn't the huge scar running across his face add to his charm? Ibiki, clearly not used to this kind of attention decided to buy nearly everything in the store to get out of there more quickly.

How he could do this and still look unflappable, Yousei didn't know. She ended up with far more stuff than she could ever wear and by then, it was late afternoon.

#

After eating a home-cooked diner, her otou-san ushered her to her room and told her to go to sleep. It was surreal. Yousei had dreamed for so long to meet this new otou-san. She didn't really know why it had been so important. She had had a father in her previous life. A rather distant one, but still.

After thinking it over she realized some things. It had been important because despite having had a previous life, she was a child. An advanced child but a child nonetheless.

Maybe, even though she did not have a blank state upon waking up in this world, the reincarnation process had changed something within her or she had simply regressed with her body to a younger state and she felt the need for a parental figure like a normal child would do.

Thinking it carefully over, she realized that the things that had set her apart from a simple child, namely her memories, were fading. She hadn't noticed it before, too concentrated on surviving life with her okaa-san or on traveling across the Elemental Countries.

Strangely, it didn't fill her with fright. In fact, it was vaguely reassuring that it was going away. She didn't really wish to remember her life as a near vegetable and since she hadn't known all that much about Naruto, it didn't bother her much, especially since she didn't need it too survive. She had her otou-san to help her with that now, she thought before falling asleep.

#

Waking up early had become a habit for her, so she was up at five. Taking the time to wash up a bit, she then seated herself on the floor to meditate for a bit. Feeling her chakra had become such a habit that she knew her own intimately. Curious, she extended her radius to see if she could found her father.

To explain chakra sensing, you had to understand that everyone emitted chakra. To sense it was like picking up a seismic wave and being a seismograph. You received the chakra waves or rather they affected your own really slightly and enabled you to guess how far and where the person was. The further away, the less it affected your chakra, the harder it was to pick up and the more sensitive you needed to be. Likewise, the more chakra one had, the more your chakra wave affected others.

To try and hide chakra, one probably needed to control what was emitted but Yousei had no idea were to start with that.

Feeling curious, she tried to sense her fathers chakra. Giggling to herself, she realized he was most likely still asleep as she could feel him a few meters away on the same floor. Slowly getting out of her meditative state, she tried to keep sensing chakra and she managed it for a few seconds until it went away. She didn't have any control over it so unless she concentrated very had she couldn't feel it much, much less determine how it was being affected.

#

Descending the stairs as quietly as she could and feeling like a burglar, she found her way to the garden through the sliding glass door. The garden was really nice, she thought. A few bonsais mixed with stones. A clear pond with small dark fishes and water lilies. At the back, there were bigger trees which hid the view and gave off the impression that you were in the middle of nowhere and not in the middle of a city.

Slowly she began to run and jump around the garden, being careful not to destroy anything. Since she was light-footed, it wasn't that hard. After some time she went back to the front of the house where she proceeded to do her gymnastic stunts. A few cartwheels, aerial cartwheels, round-offs, back walkover, somersaults, front flips, back flips, gainer, moon kicks, flash kicks, she did them all. It was such a rush to do it again after having been unable to for more than a month.

After that, she was a bit winded and decided to cool down by doing light stretches. When finished, she turned back to the house to take a shower when, surprised, she noticed she had been observed in her morning ritual. Feeling slightly embarrassed in front of her otou-san the ninja, she stiffened, one of her arm coming to hold her opposing elbow, crossed her legs and lowered her eyes.

"You did a good job. Go wash up and come back for breakfast.." was her otou-san's laconic reaction. Her eyes snapping back up, she gave him a wide smile before dashing up the stairs.

#

Quickly showering, she dressed herself with some of her new clothes: a white summer dress with straps and a light-blue belt around the waist. She brushed her hair before plaiting them in a long braid. Putting her feet back in the slippers, she went back down. Eating the breakfast under her otou-san's watchful gaze, she waited for him to talk.

"I have taken the liberty of changing your name. You will now officially wear my name. Your full name is Morino Yousei." Wondering when he had found the time to do that, she acquiesced.

"I am an active shinobi and a busy one at that. You may find yourself left to your own devices quite often. This is why, I will put down some ground rules that you will have to respect. And you will respect them. Is that clear?"

"Hai otou-san."

"Good. Can you read? Can you do basic math? Do you wish to become a kunoichi"

"Hai otou-san, to all three question." He shot her an inquisitive stare but apparently chose to believe her since he didn't asked her any other questions on the subject.

"Good. Then I will enroll you in the Academy. The Hokage has allowed it. Although you will be younger than most of your peers, it is probably the best solution for you and me. I believe you would be bored in a civilian school and the Academy has long hours so you won't be roaming the streets too much.

You will be one of the youngest children in your class. But that won't be much different to what you are used to according to what you told the Hokage which is good. The Academy should be more challenging than a normal civilian curriculum. I will not be able to devote much time to help you with your studies but I will try. School starts in two weeks."

"Now onto another subject. As long as you keep working hard, you will be given leave to do anything you may wish in your free time. As long as it is legal, of course. You will be home by seven every night at the latest. The only exceptions are when I inform you that I will be unable to make it to dinner in which case you are to report at seven at Shinobi Central Mess that I will show you today.

When that happens, you are expected to be home at eight. I will give you stipend every day to go eat there for lunch and diner on the days where you need it. You will go eat there. If you want to eat somewhere else, I want to be warned beforehand. Do you understand all that?"

A bit overwhelmed by all the new rules, Yousei acquiesced.. Well it was going to be a bit different than what she was used to in Shirakawa. Thinking about her mother, she realized, different was good. Really good.

But still, she hadn't expected to have such a stern father. She was happy to be here but under his eyes, she felt a bit uncertain. Valiantly trying to look confident, she straightened her back, held her head high and smiled at him. He didn't exactly smile back but his lips twitched slightly so she chose to take it as a victory.

"Very well. If you want to invite some of your comrades, you may do so. But, like for sleepovers..." His face twisted itself a bit as though he had never imagined he would one day say such words. But, before she could blink, it was gone and he was back to being blank. "…you will have to ask for permission first. Now, if you are soon finished, we will leave. We have a lot of ground to cover in order to familiarize yourself with Konoha and I sadly have to go back to work tomorrow because we are a bit short staffed."

Nodding slightly, Yousei hurried to finish eating and to clean her plates. Following her otou-san to the front door, she nearly ran into him when he stopped abruptly and turned to talk to her

"To come inside the grounds, you have to be keyed into the wards which is why you cannot invite your friends over without my say so. The house and the garden is protected by a barrier made of seals. I will not show you how to key someone in for quite some time. But since I did it for you yesterday, you do not have to worry about that."

#

And then, they left the house. They spent the day walking around Konoha. Ibiki showed his daughter where to find the Academy, how to find her way back to the Hokage tower. He brought her to the Shinobi Central Mess, took her to the hospital, to the park, to a few training grounds. He guided her to the Konoha Military Police Corps Headquarters, to the market...And when she got tired, he lifted her up and put her on his shoulders and it was fun.

Konoha was fascinating to the eye of an outsiders. All the buildings were covered in multicolored paint. The town managed to give off both the feeling of living in a big city and of living in a village because it had many trees, parks and training grounds inside the walls surrounding it.

The people seemed rather happy but one could see the signs of reconstructions and many shops were still boarded up showing that Konoha had once been much more prosperous. Walking the streets enabled Yousei to spot a variety of characters like a man all in green she tentatively labeled as Maito Gai.

And the signs that this was a ninja city and thus different compared to all the other cities, towns and villages she had passed by in her travels were obvious. Nowhere else but here had she seen people jump so casually on roofs, run so quick or disappear in an instant to reappear almost instantaneously somewhere else.

#

When it became late, he brought her back home telling her not to worry and that, when the time came to start at the Academy, she would have had enough time to get accustomed to the city. Bringing them back home, Ibiki then prepared dinner and they ate in the living-room in a comfortable silence.

After they were finished, they moved to the garden where the man proceeded to pour his daughter some sweet juice and some sake for himself. In the light of the dying sun, he asked her if she had any questions for him.

"How does one mold chakra?" she asked. He gave her a pondering look and probably it wouldn't hurt to answer.

"The Academy should teach you that in a year or so. A few people manage to do it on their own but most need the help of a trained ninja. Some, like you, can sense chakra without any training but not mold it.

To do so, you often need someone with good control over his chakra to transform the student's into the state where it is usable. Once someone has seen the transformation of his or her chakra often enough, they can learn to replicate it on their own.

That's why you need competent teachers with good chakra control to teach Academy students. Sometimes parents can do it if they are competent enough. It takes a child usually an average of a year with weekly one hour session in the Academy.

Of course, some take a lot longer and some learn it by accident in a near instantaneous manner. But those cases are really rare. It is the reason why you cannot often find ninja outside of families or clans of ninja and the reason why Hidden Villages are so useful.

It is because the secret to molding chakra I shared with civilians thus creating new ninja families with more potential than the precedent due to being genetically predisposed to manipulating chakra."

Yousei was surprised. She hadn't thought it would take so long to learn how to use chakra. But, undeterred from pursuing her goal of mastering her chakra, she asked:

"Will you help me learn it?"

#

A really tiny smile peeked on her otou-san's face who moved in front of her instead of answering. Both were now seated with legs crossed on the small wooden patio in the garden next to the house. Ibiki took his kid's hands in his own and closed his eyes. Yousei did the same and started concentrating on feeling her chakra as if she were meditating.

At first she felt nothing then, slowly, she felt her own chakra moving seemingly independently. Taking care to analyze how it felt, she realized that it was becoming denser in a way. It was rather puzzling. The molded chakra felt odd to her senses. Then, the amount of chakra being transformed grew bigger.

She could almost feel it as if it were an object she could hold. Taking it in her hand, she managed to make the chakra move to the right and then to the left. The more there was, the easier it was to control.

Playing with it for a bit, she slowly started to lose control as the chakra reverted back to its natural state. It changed back to the strange type of chakra and she could manipulate it again. And then there was nothing in her hand and she felt tired, really tired as huge amount of her chakra was forcibly expelled, under her otou-san's control, out of her body.

"Right. It's enough. It is not good to do this for too long. I made you release your chakra at the end to show you how it feels to let your chakra out of your body and how dangerous it can be. A bit more than that and you could have suffered from extreme chakra exhaustion.

I want you to promise that you will not try to mold chakra outside of my supervision or that of a teacher. Students have died trying to mold chakra and accidentally releasing too much. Is that clear?" he asked his daughter in a stern voice.

"I promise otou-san." the girl answered in a tired voice.

"Good. Now go to sleep." Ibiki ordered and Yousei did just that, letting herself be carried to her bedroom and tucked in her bed.

#

The next day, Yousei's otou-san went back to work. Two weeks passed in a dash. The little girl spent that time familiarizing herself with the town. Every morning, she spent a few hours playing in the garden and meditating while making the most out of the nice summer days.

Every evening, she spent with her otou-san who had kept his promise and did try to spent as much time as he could with her after work. Sometimes he even came home for a few hours to make her diner and work with her on molding chakra before going back to work when she was sleeping.

The days she spent in the village trying to spot as much ninja as she could. She tried to follow the strangest one to see how long it would take for them to notice. Most of them found her out in a matter of moments, easily shaking their tail away.

But, once she was following a young genin. He could obviously sense he was being followed but he thought he was paranoid and after an hour of the game, he was so freaked out that Yousei reluctantly stopped because she certainly didn't want to give him a heart attack before his thirties.

#

At lunch, she ate at the Shinobi Central Mess. She had been surprised that she, a non-shinobi, could eat there but her otou-san had explained that anyone with a ninja as a close family relation could eat there. And indeed, she could see whole families eating there everyday. Eating at the Shinobi Mess was easily the best part of her day, after spending time with her otou-san, of course, because the hall had the highest concentration of ninjas she had ever seen.

Maybe there were more somewhere else, but she certainly hadn't seen any. Ninjas were a loud and colorful bunch. The noise level in the food hall was always very high. Some of the ninjas were tall, sooo tall, others were huge, and she wondered what their techniques were. Maybe they were Akimichis. Others were painfully thin and looked as if a gentle breeze could knock them over.

#

She also wondered if strange hair color and aptitude at using chakra were linked because even if there was still a majority of brown- or black-haired shinobi, there was also a big concentration of blue-, red-, purple-, yellow-, a few pink-, green-,... haired ninja in many different shades. It was really amusing. Yousei liked colors.

Ninja also had most likely not heard of common etiquette because they all brought wicked-looking weapons in the mess-hall. In an attempt to see as much of them as she could, she had taken to eat real quick and then, to roam around the tables to look at them.

Sometimes, the ninjas were nice and explained what the weapon was, most of them paid her no mind, a few rudely told her to go play elsewhere. But all in all, living in a hidden village was fascinating.

#

At the end of her impromptu holiday came the time to start at the Academy. Ibiki-otou-san took an afternoon off to buy her all the books, practice kunais, pencils, practice shurikens, rulers, weapons pouch,...she would need at school. He also bought some ninja clothes for her, which weren't all that different from her usual clothes except maybe they were more resistant and durable. They had found a small forest green tunic and black standard shinobi pants (without the bandages at the ankles) as well as dark sandals.

The next morning, she woke up so excited that she couldn't stop fidgeting while attempting to meditate. Her morning exercises were cut short when she almost fell in the pond in front of her otou-san because she was trembling ever so slightly from nerves and couldn't concentrate enough to do her gymnastic. The older man told her to stop for the day and eat her breakfast. After washing up for a bit, they prepared to leave the house together.

In front of the house, he gave her one of his rare smiles, most likely in an attempt to soothe her nerves. It did work in a way because the smile came out so strangled that she started to giggle. Taking her hands in his, they slowly walked to the Academy where he left her in the playground while going on about his day.

#

In the playground, Yousei soon realized that she was the shortest kid around. She had known it intellectually, but in Shirakawa, she had always known she wasn't enrolled in school and she hadn't tried to socialize at all with the children so the age and size difference hadn't bothered her at all. Here, she was among children she would be mixing with for a few years at least and suddenly, age and size mattered. Especially since all the kid had easily ten centimeters on her, the older sometimes half a meter.

It might not seem like much but in truth, when you realized that she wasn't even a meter tall, ten centimeters was huge. And the kids wouldn't miss it. Feeling too shy to try and join the ninja tag game, she went to sit on one of the swing, gently moving while observing her future comrades.

#

When the bell signaling the start of class rang, the older looking kids headed to their classrooms without prompting, obviously knowing their way around. She sprung of the swing and hurried toward the chuunin who was gesturing to the smaller children to gather around him. She had been right. Even the smallest eight year old had at least ten centimeters on her. She wasn't exactly tall for a six and a half years old and at that age, a year and a half made all the difference.

Already some of the children were looking at her funny and she could hear some of them whispering and wondering what the baby was doing here. The chuunin in charge shushed the children before welcoming them. She was an average looking young woman with light brown straight hair, green eyes, small round sunglasses on her nose and wore her headband around her head. She wore the traditional uniform with the green flak jacket, a blue sweater, blue shinobi pants with bandages around the ankles to tuck the fabric in and blue sandals.

"I would like to welcome everyone of you for the start of the autumn term. You have all have chosen a difficult path for which you will need to study hard and train harder. If you are unsure as to whether you want to become a ninja or not, go home, think it over and come back in four months where you can join another class of beginners.

Every four month, a new beginners class is formed. Since you started in September, it will be your classes official start of the school year. If you mix with students who started four months ago, do not and I repeat, do not attempt to copy their training without supervision. Even if you are the same age, they have had more training and it would be dangerous. Is that understood?"

"Hai."

"I didn't hear anything. Is that understood?"

"HAI, sensei!"

"That's better. My name is Fujiwara Sachiyo, and I will be your sensei for the next four years. You will call me Fujiwara-sensei. Now, come on, I will show you the room which will be your classroom for the next four years."

#

The Academy was a really long and high building situated close to the Hokage tower. It was painted beige with pale orange tiles. There were many, many classrooms and as far as Yousei could see, they all looked exactly the same. Big, with high ceilings, pitched floors where you could find benches and desks in rows, a huge blackboard in the front of the room. Theirs was no different.

Fujiwara-sensei made all the children sit. Yousei chose to find a seat alone at the back upstairs. All the other children squabbled a bit wanting to sit next to their friends before Fujiwara-sensei told them to shut up and sit. Instantly, all the children found the nearest seat and stopped talking. Yousei looked longingly at the kids before watching the empty spaces beside her.

Maybe, she thought to herself, she should have made an effort to approach the other children. Just as soon as Fujiwara-sensei was starting her first lecture, the classroom's door opened and none other than the Hokage himself stepped in with a young small boy at his side holding his hand.

#

Yousei probably wouldn't have paid the young boy any mind were it not for three things.

First, she had been looking at Fujiwara-sensei when the Hokage stepped in the classroom and she caught the fleeting expression of intense hate on her face. It was quickly covered by a smile but Yousei hadn't missed it and apparently neither did the Hokage because his own smile became strained.

Second was the fact that he was as small as herself. He certainly didn't look eight years old and more six, or even five, years old, even if he was a bit smaller.

The third, last but not least, thing she noticed were the three parallel lines slashing across his cheeks, the sun-kissed hair, the tan skin and the huge cerulean eyes devouring his face. It was Naruto. She certainly hadn't been expecting that. She was in the same class as Naruto.

"My excuses Fujiwara-sensei, I was detained and am now late to bring you one of your students. Go on sit Naruto. I will now take my leave. Good day to you students." And with those words, he was gone.

Looking petrified, the small boy hadn't moved an inch. He stayed rooted in place so long that the other children started laughing at him until the teacher gestured rudely for him to go sit alone in the last row opposite to the one Yousei was sitting in despite the fact that hers was empty also. Face red with embarrassment, she stood up.

"Ne, Naruto, you can sit next to me if you want!"

#

She was rewarded with a huge smile and before the teacher could object like she visibly wanted to, Naruto had dashed to her side and stretched his hand out yelling that he was Uzumaki Naruto, it was nice to meet her and what was her name in such a rush that Yousei had trouble following him. Before she could attempt to respond, Fujiwara-sensei yelled harshly at him to be quiet and to sit down.

Dejected the little boy did as he was told and took his hand back. He was so damn cute. Discreetly, Yousei took his hand under the desk and shook it once before letting it go and introducing herself under his amazed stare. Like she had done something wonderful and he gave her another one of his sunny smiles.

#

Fujiwara-sensei started her lectures about general ninja life, a nice piece of indoctrination where ninjas were presented as nice heroes and do-gooders. Feeling bored, Yousei looked around. The kids where lapping it up except for a young brown-haired girl who already looked fast asleep and my neighbor who was doodling monkeys on a piece of paper. He had talent. For a soon to be six years old. At least they were recognizable. Which was better than what she could do. A lot better.

After a short while, he stopped, squirmed in his seat for a bit, looked around, shot her a smile, watched the other kids before taking out a rubber band, played with it for a while, made paper balls, fire them to the sleeping girl who shot up, looked around and gave him a glare.

Then he decided to juggle under the table with the rest of his paper ball. He quickly grew bored out of it, listened to Fujiwara-sensei for a bit, grew bored again and started drawing flowers on another sheet of paper. All that in under two hours. It was exhausting to even look at and highly distracting.

#

After two hours of boring ninja does and ninja don'ts that everyone would forget as soon as they left the classroom, they were let out for recess. Naruto shot up from his desk like he was on fire and headed toward the door only to be held back by Yousei's hand which had attached itself to his white T-shirt.

"Hi." He looked shocked for a moment, like her being nice was surprising, but he returned her tentative smile.

"Do you want to go somewhere together? We could get to know each other?" Another sunny smile later and they were off, running toward the playground and the swings.

"I love the swing, it's so fun. I want to fly some day. How old are you? You look really tiny."

"You're smaller than me." Yousei shot back in a deadpan voice.

"You're funny. And you're weird but nice so it's okay."

"Thank you for the ringing endorsement." She answered sarcastically back.

"You talk funny. Like an adult. Boring." he said in her face having moved close to her.

"Wanna play tag?"

"Tag?" Naruto asked her.

"I am a ninja. I try to catch you. When I do it, becomes your turn to try and catch you. So run." And he was off in an instant.

#

They played for recess the fifteen minutes of recess and then again at lunch time and again in the afternoon. School didn't get better. Naruto couldn't seem to concentrate at all and Fujiwara-sensei was boring as hell talking about the ninja rules, made them read out of textbooks about geography, talked about the different countries in general terms.

It was most likely difficult enough for the eight years old students but, since Fujiwara-sensei made sure to repeat herself multiple times, to talk slowly using simple words for the students to take notes, it made the whole affair rather tedious.

#

At the end of the school day, at four, they played tag again but on the empty training field next to the Academy and it became more serious. They were more hiding places because there were trees and rocks. It slowly turned into hide and seek and Naruto was the undefeated champion.

Were it not for her sensing abilities, Yousei would probably never have found him. As it is, when it was her turn, she closed her eyes for a minute, concentrated and pinpointed his location.

Luckily, Naruto didn't know how she sniffed him out otherwise it would have been a simple matter of moving from his hiding spot every forty seconds and she would have never found him. After playing for two hours, they decided to stop as even Naruto was starting to slow down.

When they got talking, Yousei started to notice that Naruto was speaking slower and fidgeted much less. She had started to wonder whether he had an attention deficit disorder, but apparently he only had too damn much energy to sit still.

"I'll have to head home soon. What are you going to do?" she asked wondering where he was living at this point in time.

"I guess I'll stay out a little longer"

"Don't you have a curfew? Who takes care of you?"

"I don't have no stupid curfew and I live in my own apartment. No one minds I come back late." Yousei was flabbergasted.

He was as old as her and living alone. At her surprised look, Naruto looked embarrassed for a second before making the V-sign with is right hand and pasted a false, cringe-worthy grin on his face loudly proclaiming:

"I'm big now! I'm almost six years old! Big enough to live on my own! Hokage-jiji told me so!" and he was off yelling goodbye and heading to Kami knows where.

#

Dejectedly, she headed home thinking about her new friend. She barely remembered her old memories and Naruto the anime were such a small part of them that the only thing she actually recalled was that it had been a TV-show about a young boy with yellow hair, and that there had been something about the Kyuubi being sealed in him, the boy living to be resented against by the villagers he was unknowingly protecting.

There were other things she knew but she felt as though she knew of them because she had come across them in this new life, like the Inuzuka. She knew they were shinobi working with dogs, but she couldn't recall them from any TV-shows but rather from her long trip from Nami no Kuni to Konoha.

And now that she had seen Naruto, she knew him but could scarcely remember anything from any damn anime. All she knew for sure is that her new friend was being unfairly treated and even if he was a bit goofy, she would help him.

#

At home, she took out a book from her otou-san's study about the Elemental Nations. It was much more detailed than what Fujiwara-sensei had painfully tried to teach to the eight years old children that barely knew how to write and read. It was a fascinating book about someone's world travels and the various people and culture he had met.

At seven, her otou-san came back and prepared dinner. Asking him if she could invite a friend home the following day, to which he agreed saying that he would come home at four to key her friend in the ward. She also wondered aloud if the Academy was always going to be so boring. Without being really asked, Ibiki answered.

"Probably. Konoha has managed to replenish her forces, as a consequence, the Academy's curriculum has changed. Sandaime doesn't want to push the students too hard, especially in the first few years. So it will probably seem slow to you since you appear to be more advanced than your peers.

But you won't be allowed to advance quicker. Being allowed two years earlier than most students is all the Hokage is willing to allow. But there are many things you can learn on your own, outside the Academy to make up for the slow pace of the curriculum.

I will borrow some texts from the Shinobi Library that you can read. I have also put a cupboard filled with books about basic in many shinobi arts, in your room. It is up to you to learn more than what you are offered if it bores you."

"Thank you otou-san."

#


	4. Chapter 4

School the next day was predictably boring. Naruto looked tortured to have to sit still for hours and they played tag again. When school let out, Yousei invited him to come back home with her.

Though he looked visibly conflicted and apprehensive, he followed her to her front door. There, Ibiki scared them both by sneaking up on them and skittishly, Naruto backed away in fear, nearly running away.

Ibiki raised an eyebrow at this behavior, not reacting any other way to the Kyuubi's jailor, and spoke to him visibly trying to soften his voice, which didn't work all that well.

"Boy, I'm not going to eat you. Now hand over your hand." While Naruto didn't look less afraid, Ibiki was really scary-looking, and probably didn't trust adults all that much, he, resolutely, stretched his hand out. The older man took it in his and shook it lightly.

Getting keyed into the wards took a matter of seconds a seconds.

"Right. It is done. I will be going back to work. I will be back at seven. Naruto, if you want to sleepover tonight, Yousei can take out a futon from one of the guest bedrooms. Now scram!"

"Hai otou-san/scary man!" making Yousei realized that she hadn't introduced her otou-san.

Having Naruto over made it much more fun. They played games in the garden, ran around like headless chicken, she tried to teach him how to do a cartwheel and a round-off, both off which he was surprisingly good at. When they started to tire a bit, they cleaned of a bit before going into Yousei's room. There she showed Naruto her book about Sekigawa the Explorer she had found so fascinating.

#

"A book? Books are boring, Yousei-chan, so totally boring. I don't how you can read them. They're stupid."

"This one is really good, I bet if you read a chapter you would be totally hooked."

"Laaaame, totally laaaame, Yousei-chan." Naruto's obvious reluctance at even looking at the book planted the seed of a ridiculous notion in her head. She tried to shake it for a moment before giving up and asking the question which had been running through her mind.

"Can you even read?" Naruto visibly paled, looked away and laughed the question away. He was a horrible liar. Yousei was aghast. Academy students were supposed to be able to read and do basic arithmetic. How was it possible?

"You can't, can you. How did you manage to get into the Academy?" Yousei wondered.

"You can tell me. I won't tell anyone unless you want me to. Promise." She could see him wavering deciding what to say and could see the exact moment he decided to tell the truth.

"It's stupid. I can read a bit but only really simple stuff. I don't know many words. My civilian teacher didn't like me too much. He didn't want to teach me anymore and I guess he thought it would be funny to see if I could be a ninja a half-liiterate." He said mangling the word.

"I heard Tanuma-sensei laugh about it to the other sensei. He told the Hokage that I wasn't challenged enough in the class and maybe I should be sent to the Academy where there were more used to "special children". Special children, my ass." Naruto swore while Yousei looked at him in a new light. He was much more perceptive than he seemed at first glance.

"And no one checked to see if you had the basic skills to get into the Academy?"

"Pfff, no one cared. And it doesn't matter, I'll be a great ninja, you'll see! Even if I'm half-iliterite, I don't care." Suddenly worried he put himself in my face and said: "You can't say anything either, 'cause you promised and promises are forever and ever!"

"Well, since I can't say anything to anyone, I can at least help you learn to read. I don't want you to be held back a year because you can't read. I want you to stay in my class because you're my friend. Take this book, we'll start with this one. Ha ah, no talking, I'm teaching!"

Naruto looked gobsmacked and teary-eyed for a while before sitting beside his friend (He had a friend) and listened to her lecture him. Yousei speculated that having spend so much energy in the day had helped him concentrate because he didn't fidget half as much as he did in class and could actually be seen concentrating.

She stopped making him read forty-five minutes later when his attention dropped significantly and just continued reading to him until she heard the front door opening. Lightly shaking her friend, who had started to drowse, awake, she put away her book. She came down the stairs, Naruto following her.

#

At diner, Naruto still seemed wary of Ibiki who tried not to be his usually slightly abrasive self in front of the distrusting boy. But, when Naruto started to inhale his food, he was sharply told to slow down and eat in a civilized manner or else, by a rather terse Ibiki.

Strangely, the abrupt tone seemed to calm the boy down as he loosened up slightly, perhaps sensing that Ibiki let his true personality out and not some calm, fake front.

Having finished, they headed to the patio were both children were given some sweet-smelling juice to sip and Ibiki drank some sake. They all relaxed, even Naruto. When he started to wriggle slightly in place, Ibiki distracted his attention by giving him a short lecture on chakra and how to learn to mold it which apparently fascinated the boy so much that he was completely concentrated for the first time since Yousei had met him.

He wore such an uncharacteristic expression of concentration, screwing his eyes shut and looking somewhat constipated, that Yousei couldn't help herself and chuckled lightly behind her hand.

Afterward, Ibiki took the boy's smaller hand in his, gaining his first sunny smile as Naruto understood that the adult was going to take the time to teach him how to mold chakra. Yousei concentrated on what was happening in front of her wondering if she could feel the transformation of simple chakra to molded chakra in another person. Up close, she concluded that it was possible.

But while she could easily feel the molded chakra, especially Naruto's who had so much, without even needing to concentrate, the transformation which had been so obvious when it had been her own felt barely noticeable in someone else. It explained why that type of teaching had to be done one on one. Very few children were chakra sensitive enough to even detect the molding of chakra happening in another person's body. Molded chakra however was very easily detectable for her. She didn't have to concentrate even half as much as she had to for normal, unused chakra.

When her otou-san stopped working with her friend, he released the chakra he had molded, which was huge, and delivered the same warning he had given her to the suddenly very sleepy boy.

Looking at him, he frowned for a moment before shaking whatever thought had troubled him. Next, Ibiki moved to take his daughter's hand and doing the same exercise with her. When they were finished, Ibiki had to carry both children into Yousei's room.

#

The next morning, the children woke up early, soon before realizing that Naruto didn't have any clean clothes. Yousei offered to lend some her own and opened her the doors of her closet. Naruto was very curious about the amount and variety of outfits she had and it ended with him modeling her clothes.

They both had a lot of fun at that until Yousei, completely at ease, started taking her pajamas off. When she was completely naked, Naruto started to look at her strangely.

"Why don't you have this weird thing between the legs? How do you even pee?"

"You've never seen a girl before? We are built differently than boys."

"Is that why you can wear dresses and long hair and stuff and I can't?" Well, Yousei was stumped. She certainly where to start explaining that one to Naruto, so she took the easy way out.

"Not exactly, no. Here take one of my green tunics and black pants and let's ask my otou-san when he wakes up." Putting her money where her mouth is, she handed him some of her ninja training outfits.

"Cool, we'll match." Naruto said putting them on quickly while she did the same.

#

They both rushed down the stairs and into the garden where she proceeded to instruct her about meditation and its benefit. While Naruto was clearly willing to put some effort in doing it right, it was an unmitigated disaster. Yousei soon realized that if she wanted to be able to impart her knowledge of meditation to her friend, she would have to tire him out first. So, they started to race against one another around the garden, generally disturbing the peace and the two sparrows who were trying to sleep in a tree up high.

Giving meditation another shot proved her theory right since Naruto at least managed to stay still for twenty minutes before declaring it boring and what ninja did stupid things like sitting around doing nothing? But since he said that with a smile and soon added that he had sensed his chakra and he was awesome 'cause he had so much and did she have as much, Yousei didn't really care as she was sure she could convince him to try again later on.

#

Breakfast was a funny affair. While eating, Naruto started asking questions with his mouth full. He was told off for it by a grumpy looking adult which weirdly made the boy beam.

When Naruto asked why boys and girls were different and could they both wear the same clothes, and could boys wear dresses because they were kinda cool, why did he have a weird thingy between the legs and Yousei did not, and how could he become a girl, Ibiki somehow managed to stay stoic under the onslaught of questions.

Instead of answering the questions like his daughter had expected him to, Ibiki took on a rather thoughtful expression carefully dissecting the younger boy with his gaze and asked his own questions.

"Naruto." the boy so visibly brightened at hearing his name that even Ibiki flinched a bit at the attention starved boy but he continued in his momentum "Would you want to become a girl?"

"Kinda, I think so, girls look cool."

"That's not a good enough answer. Please elaborate." Ibiki said in a hard voice. Naruto looked a bit cowed.

"I mean, I've never like the weird thingy, I didn't know how boys and girls were different. No one told me why. Only that I was a boy and had to do some stuff while girls did other stuff."

"Why don't you like having a penis?" at Naruto's blank look, he elaborated: "The weird thingy."

"Cause it feel strange, like it shouldn't be there at all. And sometimes I look at myself and it feels weird, like it's completely wrong and I get shivers and all, and I hate it."

"Did you ever say something about this to anyone?"

"Who would have cared anyway? I only tried to tell Hokage-jiji, but I couldn't explain well and he said it would go away." the boy mumbled.

At that the only adult in the room frowned so much that Naruto cringed a bit until Ibiki told the children that he would be back soon and that they were not to leave for the Academy today. He positively strode out of the room and out of the house leaving two befuddled children in his wake.

"Yatta, no boring school today!" Naruto exclaimed jumping out of his seat.

"I wonder what it is all about." Yousei muttered while cleaning the table up. "Want to go read a book?"

"Owww, you sure know how to take the fun out of skipping school! Why don't we do something fun like training or fighting?"

"We can do that after reading." Naruto scrunched his face with pouting lips and grumbled a bit but he still followed her as she giggled.

#

After couple of hours of training Naruto to read, Ibiki came back, told them to put on their shoes and to follow him. He looked so serious that both children refrained from asking questions. Once out of the house, he scurried so quickly to his unknown destination that the children had to run behind him just to keep up.

Finally, he stopped in front of a big house a little out of the way from Konoha. He knocked loudly on the door until it was, at last, opened by a sleepy looking old man still in his sleeping wear.

"You owe me a favor old man, I'm cashing it in."

The few words were the sleepy man's only warning before Ibiki rudely barged in the house gesturing at the children to follow him inside. The old man looked old. Really old. Like before Konoha old. Older than even the Sandaime, thought Yousei. He had a few tuft of white hair on his otherwise bald head, many wrinkles and crinkles on his face. He was a bit sickly looking with his too thin figure and his huge reading glasses perched on his nose giving him an owl-like appearance.

"So rude." the man whined.

Taking in the room they were in, Yousei hazarded the guess that he was a doctor which was confirmed when Ibiki asked Saionji-sensei to examine Naruto. Grudgingly the medic-nin agreed. Pushing a clueless Naruto onto a medical bed, he kept a running commentary while performing multiple scans on the boy.

Curious, Yousei started concentrating on feeling the medical chakra. It felt so different than what she had experienced before. She wondered if it was another type of chakra transformation which gave it its greenish glow.

"So I guess you managed to procreate. But this one certainly isn't yours. Then again the red-head doesn't look anything like you either. Much too pretty. Must take after her mother a lot. Although I can't figure out how the hell you could bag a good-looking woman like that with your ugly mug, you useless excuse of a Iryō-nin.

Why I ever bothered to teach anything, I wouldn't know. What kind of twisted person tries to become an Iryō-nin, before deciding to end up butchering people for a living. Freak. I ought to tan your ass like I did when you were a genin. Useless child...Ummm.

I think I can see why you came to see me. That's what you get when you stop your studies to become an Iryō-nin before you are finished. Guess torturing people doesn't help when you have a sick child on your hand. Useless man." He finally stopped talking when his words didn't manage to elicit any kind of response from the surly man. Looking at Naruto, he wondered aloud.

"Do you consider yourself to be a boy or a girl?"

"A boy?" Naruto answered in a hesitant manner with uncharacteristic timidity.

"Louder, boy! And was that an answer or a question? Children these days, harumpf, they get more stupid every year, I swear."Turning around, he faced Ibiki.

"I can see why you brought her here. I can do the toransu seibetsu moofu no justu or transgender-morphing operation. I'll only need a lot of preparation and for the girl to pop a lot of pills. Although how you managed to spot that when you're as dull as as a rock, I wouldn't know. And your chakra control has probably gotten atrocious, horrible."

He started to speak to Naruto again. "Girl,..." but he was interrupted by the boy who was really annoyed by now at not following what the adults were talking about.

"I told you I'm a boy."

"Don't interrupt your elders, girl. It's rude. And I'm not senile enough not to recognize when I am speaking to a girl. Although, I admit, you look a lot like an ill-mannered boy at the moment." He sat next to the bed and his voice took on a slightly softer tone.

"Yes, at the moment, your body is male, it means that you look like a boy. But, and I'm sure you have noticed it a bit, your body must feel strange to you, like it should be different." at Naruto's uncertain nod, he kept on talking. "That's because you were born with a medical condition, you are sick. Although, qualifying it as a sickness is not exactly true. You are not exactly ill. Your condition will not kill you or slow you down too much, you'll still be able to function relatively well in everyday settings..

However, since your chakra and your mind know that you are a girl but your body is that of a boy, it can make your life difficult. With this dichotomy, this fact, your chakra and mind and your body are at war. It will probably cause you to have really poor chakra control later on and give you difficulty to concentrate for a long period of time due to the war raging in your body.

As you get older, you would probably find it difficult to deal with the changes in your body and try to resemble a woman as much as you can in a desperate attempt to lessen the war between your body and your mind. Some even go as far as to surgically try to look like a woman which helps a bit but is a really difficult and long process which still doesn't turn you, at least physically, in a real woman and has its own set of complications. It makes having relationships difficult and can be really taxing on the psyche.

You are probably not following everything I am telling you. Just know this. A cure exist for young children suffering from this. Children with shinobi parents are often diagnosed in the first few month of their birth because of the strong bond between them which enables the parents to sense their child's chakra and become intimately familiar with it.

Civilians and orphans usually slip through the cracks unless they are brought in to see a Iryō-nin in their early years. They have to live with this difficulty for their whole life. They often get ridiculed for it when it is not their fault at all. Because Ibiki caught the problem early enough, we can still do the medical operation to turn you into a fully functioning girl. Had he not realized it, in two years, it would have been impossible to operate without killing you as your body would have resisted the change. As it is, it will need a long amount of preparation to make your mind malleable."

Seeing that Naruto had been completely lost by the explanation, he changed tactics.

"You are a girl. Your body is that of a boy. I'm going to fix that and turn you into a girl. Is that clear enough?"

"Hai sensei!"

"Good. Now, all of you get out of my home and come back tomorrow. I'll have give you the pills you need to take."

Still dazed, Naruto obeyed while Yousei, a bit confused followed him. But Ibiki stayed in place for a bit to ask some questions.

#

"Will it break the seal?"

"Idiot. I wouldn't have said I could do it if it was going to destroy the village at the same time. How you were even able to grasp even the easiest medical technique, I'll never understand, foolish boy. From what I know of the seal, and I understand quite a lot about it, I might not be a seal master but Iryō-nin study a lot about seals and I am one of the best as you well know, only surpassed by my student Tsunade-chan. Now she was a delight to teach, not like you...

Now where was I? Ah yes, from what I know of the seal, it is attached to the chakra of the boy and not the body. If it was, the boy would be in a padded cell completely shackled up lest he breaks it by accident. Since the toransu seibetsu moofu no justu only touches the body and not the chakra, it won't affect the seal at all. In theory it should even make it stronger as the girl will have more control over her chakra."

"Then why did the Sandaime not do something about this?"

"Because he is old-fashioned and doesn't believe in the existence of transgender? Because he has an idiot who can't tell his head from his ass in charge of the hospital? Because despite it being perfectly safe, he still decided to avoid doing the operation just in case? Because he didn't care? Who knows? He is an idiot in any case! The world's full of them anyway. You shouldn't be surprised, boy, you're one of them. Now, go away, I don't want to see your ugly mug any more than I absolutely have to."

After a small grateful nod, despite the verbal abuse he had been under, Ibiki left Saionji-sensei's house and went back home.

#


	5. Chapter 5

Back in the Morino house, he joined the children seated around the table in the living room to discuss what they had learned.

"So, Naruto's really a girl, ne?" Yousei wondered.

Ibiki acquiesced.

"I noticed something strange about your chakra, Naruto, when I showing you how to mold chakra but didn't think much on it at the time because...Well,...I mean... I didn't think it too odd until we had this conversation this morning and realized the problem. You emit feminine chakra despite being a boy. When that happens, it can be harmful to the person suffering from this affliction.

Nothing but a bit of discomfort until puberty where it start to be more troubling and psychologically difficult. I was worried it might be too late to attempt the operation needed to help you with this. Luckily, we caught it in time. You must know Naruto, we won't do anything without your say-so. The transformation is usually done on babies because it is much easier so we can't really take their wish into account. But since you are old enough, you should decide."

"I'll do it." Naruto said in a resolute tone before asking in an innocent voice 'But, what's puberty?'

Ibiki paused slightly before answering. "We'll talk about it when your older. Now, both of you, scram!"

The two children scampered of into the garden were they proceeded to playfully splashing each other in the pond, playing tag, doing gymnastic stunts, stretching, generally having fun before doing another chakra molding exercise with Ibiki and heading to bed afterward.

At the end of the day, both children were knackered and tucked in their futons when Naruto asked Ibiki why no one had noticed before. He had, sadly, seen many Iryō-nin in his short life. The Hokage surely must have known. Why hadn't he done something to help? He had told the old man how he felt strange sometimes and the man had just told him that it would pass when he grew up.

Ibiki, not one for coddling, told him the only truth he had.

"I don't know Naruto, to all your questions, I don't know. Now, the both of you, go to sleep, you'll have to go to the Academy tomorrow."

#

Before falling asleep, Yousei couldn't help but talk a bit with her friend.

"Are you feeling alright Naruto-chan? It must be overwhelming."

"I guess. But, mostly, I feel betrayed. I mean, I met your otou-san barely more than a day ago and already he found something sooo big. And I've known Hokage-jiji for like my whole, entire life and he didn't realize or he didn't care that something so big was wrong with me, and, and,..." Naruto started shaking. Feeling sad for her friend, she got out of her bed and slipped in his, no, hers, she would have to get used to that.

"Don't worry, Naruto-chan, I'll always be your friends. We'll be the best girlfriends in the whole world."

"...arigatou, Yousei-chan." He, well,...She said quickly falling asleep.

For the red-head, it took longer to fall asleep. The news had been so surprising. She certainly hadn't imagined this from the innocent questions she had gotten in the morning. She wondered if it changed anything for her. She hadn't known Naruto for more than a few days but she was already very attached to the young boy...no, girl. It felt strange to think of him,...her as a girl. Why? She didn't know. At that age, the differences between both sexes were not huge but in her mind, Naruto was firmly a cute little boy.

It would be hard to change how she thought about her friend, it would be hard but she would do it. She wasn't going to loose her new friend over this and she wasn't going to make the little girl feel weird about herself because she found it a bit difficult to deal with those changes. She was a pragmatic and would take her friend as he...she was.

#

The next morning, after an hour and a half spent in the garden doing something that they could vaguely pretend was ninja training but looked more like playing silly games, they meditated for half an hour, ate and headed toward the Academy while Ibiki, who had supervised, left to pick up the pills for Naruto and went to work.

The Academy was as boring as it had been on the very first day. They spent the whole day learning about rules, arithmetic, more ninja rules, basics on the Elemental Nations, basics on ninja life and how it was hard. They had to run for a kilometer as part of a training exercise under Fujiwara-sensei's hateful glare.

She seemed to have decided that Yousei was as bad as Naruto for hanging out with him, her, damn, it was hard to get used to it. Naruto had let out a mocking 'You suck, We rule!' at the sight of the lagging eight years old, which hadn't helped their standing in the class in the least.

At the end of class, after an awkward moment were they didn't know if Naruto had to go back to her apartment or not, Yousei decided to resolutely drag him home while the girl...boy...no girl stuttered that she didn't know if it was okay and she didn't want to impose, and...

Paying her no mind, Yousei kept on walking until she was home where she proceeded to lecture Naruto for an hour about why Japanese used three types of scripts to write a single sentence and how kanji, Katakana and Hiragana differed. Next, they went to play outside.

"You should really start to learn some basic fighting and throwing stances, you know."

Both children visibly startled, they hadn't sensed the man at all.

"Otou-san/Kowai-ojisan (scary man/uncle)"

Smirking at the name Naruto had dubbed him with, Ibiki beckoned them to step closer.

"I will show you some basic exercises, called Tóngzigōng. You will have to practice until you can do them in your sleep. They are focused on balance and flexibility. Once you have mastered them, I might teach more advanced forms."

And he proceeded to show them some basic moves. First came a few stretches were the children had to stand and try to touch the sky, then the earth, for example. They had to bend a knee and crouch this way, hand to the ground, the other completely straight, and then change legs.

Another move was to try to reach their feet by keeping the upper body, the hips and the legs on the same line while bending to the side at the hips. Then, they had to raise their knees as high as they could while jumping at the same place.

Next, they had to squat and jump in this position while keeping the arms bent and at the same level as their head. The next move they had to perform was to throw a straight leg in the air while keeping the back relaxed and straight and while walking at the same time and keeping straight arms in the air making a straight line with their shoulders.. Afterward, they had to form a half-crouch and do punches in the air as fast and strong as they could without loosing balance.

On the moves they enjoyed the most was to stand half-crouched with arms extended straight. The arms had to be brought to one side and then thrown to the other side so as to turn with the momentum. They had to pose next, perfectly still and repeat as often as they could without loosing focus or balance. The many turns made them so dizzy that they had to stop for a while to stop giggling.

The last move that Ibiki demonstrated was one where they had to throw one leg in the air and use the momentum to turn and end half crouching with one hand to the ground, the other one in the air, arms straight.

While Ibiki made it look as easy as breathing and the moves were not hard in themselves for the two agile and vivacious children, keeping balance and focus throughout the exercises proved to be quite difficult for them, especially Naruto who wasn't used yet to push her body in specific motion. Yousei with her self-training in gymnastics found it a bit easier.

After some time, they cooled down and went to wash and eat before doing some chakra transformation exercises. Just before going to sleep, Ibiki handed Naruto a few pill to take explaining that they were mostly hormones and a few other active elements to make the toransu seibetsu moofu no justu or transgender-morphing operation easier on the body.

#

The next few months went away in a flash in the same manner. Naruto had basically moved in without Ibiki batting an eyelid. Everyday they practiced the moves they had been taught, went to the Academy, or, spent some more time reading or training in the week-ends.

When Ibiki could not manage to come home, which sadly happened quite often, he had taken to making them some bento so that they wouldn't have to eat in the Shinobi Central Mess where Naruto didn't feel comfortable due to the scornful glares she received continuously.

The Academy didn't get more interesting for Naruto who, despite tiring herself in the morning, still found it difficult to keep still and listen for long. So when Yousei made her train her reading skill, she always made sure to use a book that explained what Fujiwara-sensei had covered during classes.

It was difficult to make the other girl concentrate enough but Naruto was much more interested in learning and making an effort when her friend took the time and patience to teach her than when she was under the sneering face of their Academy sensei.

Concerning the physical aspect of the Academy training, the two girls were constantly disappointed. Fujiwara-sensei kept them running for an hour each day and made them do a few exercised geared toward building muscle mass for half an hour every day. They didn't do anything more than this basic conditioning.

Every few weeks, Ibiki would take the time to add more exercises for them to master. He still refused to teach them any actual combat until they were both sufficiently conditioned to the stances he slowly added to their training. They were not necessarily difficult to learn for two limber girl.

But learning was just the first step and, with Ibiki insisting that as they were the foundation of many martial arts, they had to be learned and repeated until they were so ingrained in their body and muscles as well as in their mind that it took barely any effort to do them. They had to master the moves.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly to the two girls, especially Naruto who was impatient to learn to fight for 'real', Ibiki added more technical punches and kicks, like the thrust fist or thrust palm, the front kick, backward kick, side kick, crossed kick, snap kick, slap foot, crossed slap foot, jumping slap kick, backward swing kick, whirlwind kick, or the, rear leg sweep, front leg sweep, and so on and so forth. But, he didn't make them fight each other yet.

However, more and more, he made them train to make seamless transitions between one move and the other. He drilled them hard and pushed them to improve their speed in the growing sequences they had to learn. After a while, he started to make them train some moves facing each other and learning different types of blocking trying to improve their reaction time.

#

The toransu seibetsu moofu no justu took a lot of preparation and couldn't be done before a year after taking the pills that Ibiki gave to Naruto every evenings. The dosage was increased in an irregular pattern. When Saionji-sensei examined the young girl/boy, he decided if the girl was ready to advance to the next stage.

At first it seemed the medication had no side effect but after a month or so, Naruto's voice started to change ever so slightly, his hair flattened a bit, but, as they were always cut rather short, it made next to no difference in his external appearance.

They also caused him to be more moody and more easily provoked than before which sometimes got scary. These mood swing had alarmed them all but Saionji-sensei had reassured them that it was only Naruto's male body reacting badly to the new hormones.

Naruto, despite the sudden emotional imbalance couldn't have been happier. The changes she could already feel in her body lessened some of the discomfort caused by the opposition between his body and his chakra. Also, the warmth, from Yousei, and the guidance she got from Ibiki, were a balm to her soul. She was happy, really, deeply, fully happy for the first time in her life. Yousei couldn't feel more proud and happy herself than when she could spot the real smiles coming out more often than the fake smile. Now that she had somewhere she was wanted, Naruto was somewhat shielded from the villagers eyes and hostility, which helped a lot.

#

The only things that spoiled her happiness were the monthly visits to her Hokage-jiji. While Naruto still felt affectionate toward the only constant in her life since she was a baby, she didn't, couldn't see him in the same way as she had before which saddened her friend in turn.

Naruto had firmly decided to hide her friendship with the Morino because she was afraid it would be taken away from her by some angry villager or that they would be discriminated against because they associated with her.

She wasn't the brightest bulb in the bunch but she knew how the village saw her. She didn't go out of her way to hide it but since her Hokage-jiji didn't ask about it, she didn't say anything and no one else cared. She was also firmly opposed to telling anyone of her future transformation having resolved to actively hide it from the world as it was one of her precious secret, like a secret identity even.

While Yousei wasn't happy about it, feeling like it wasn't the best idea to hide such a big part of her life, Ibiki had actually agreed with his daughter's friend going as far as to say that deception was a powerful tool for a future shinobi. He added that keeping the deception going would enable Naruto to hide in plain sight whenever she wanted by shedding her disguise.

In truth, Yousei thought, more perceptive than her friend, he was probably worried that the Hokage would try to prevent Naruto from transmorphing her body.

Had she said as much to Ibiki, he would have agreed but also added, had he been allowed to, that the Kyuubi's jinchūriki had a lot of political value and he didn't want to attract the attention of Konohagakure's council to the fact that she got a lot of support from the Morino clan. They would most certainly think that he, as a clan head, was trying to influence the jinchūriki. They wouldn't see it, especially the civilian council, as simply helping out the friend of his daughter of whom he had grown surprisingly fond.

For her friend's birthday, barely more than a month after they had first met, Naruto spent lunch telling the Hokage all about how boring the Academy was while eating at the ramen stand where the latter had invited her for her birthday.

But in the evening, instead of spending the rest of the day huddled in her apartment flinching harder at the happy sounds coming from the Kyuubi festival than at the sounds of drunk villagers shouting from outside her door, she happily ate the best cake in the whole wide world and got to blow her six candles.

#

At the six months mark, the Academy started to do exams. Naruto was especially anxious at first as she hadn't realized that working with Yousei, who was quite advanced for her age in book learning, had more than made up for the time she lost in the Academy due to her lack of focus.

Although the latter had steadily improved thanks to the meditation exercises both girls did as part of their daily routines, she still wasn't able to concentrate for much longer than an hour. And she hated tests. Like really hated them. At the orphanage, she had always failed them really, really badly.

So when the time came to write the first exam about shinobi equipment, she didn't find it at all surprising that she couldn't answer any of the questions. Luckily, Yousei had spotted the uncharacteristic self-satisfied look Fujiwara-sensei had on her face as she gave Naruto her test.

Swiftly, she swapped her test exam and Naruto's under the blond girl's astonished eyes. When Naruto looked at her new test sheet, she saw that the questions were different and that she could answers those. Feeling hurt, her shoulders had dropped and her eyes had began to water slightly before she took on a fierce expression as her friend urged her to complete the test.

She did look at Yousei uncertainly when she realized that her friend had now the hard test to do, but a reassuring smile a the quick pace of a pencil against the paper convinced her that the smart girl would hold her own.

At the end of the test, the girls waited until all the students had given their test back and left the room before heading to Fujiwara-sensei's desk. Yousei took the lead.

"Fujiwara-sensei, I believed that I failed the test really badly. I think my otou-san will be really mad at me. It was so hard. We didn't cover that stuff in class at all. I know I should have done more independent study. I did some, but obviously not enough to pass the test. Otou-san really values independent study, you know.

He works in the Torture and Interrogation force and probably will be the head of the Department in a couple of years. So he always says that finding your own information is key to success. So I'll have to show him the test so he can figure out where I need to improve, which is like almost everywhere.

If I promise that I'll improve, will you allow me to do a make-up test?" Yousei said in a disgustingly sweet voice and a hard stare clearly showing that she hadn't been duped by her sensei's attempt to fail a student in her class.

The teacher, who had already met Ibiki in work mode once, took one look at the question sheet, found out that it was the one she had deliberately given the Kyuubi brat and blanched visibly. Suddenly she looked unsure.

Raising her head up, she glanced at both children and particularly at the hard stare of the red-head, and realized that she was indeed the daughter of Konoha's most promising Interrogator and that she wouldn't hesitate to tell her her father. The latter would then, most likely, report her for attempting to sabotage a child in her care, especially his child.

Even if it was only because the stupid girl had befriended the Kyuubi brat, she would most likely loose her job, unless she tried to rectify the situation now, as the Hokage was rather fond of the brat.

"Oh, Yousei-chan, I must have made a mistake when I handed out the papers. This was last year's test for my graduating students. I don't know how it got there. Here, I can give you another one that you can do right now and I'll simply throw this one away. I'm sorry for causing you such distress. Naruto-kun why don't you go outside while she writes it?"

Got you, bitch, thought Yousei in her mind uncharacteristically rude, even in her mind.

#

At dinner that night, both children told the story to Ibiki who had managed to come back home early enough to eat with them. He told them both that he was proud of the way they had handled the situation and that if something of the sorts aver happened again, he would make sure that Fujiwara-sensei wouldn't be able to teach anywhere anymore, not even in civilian schools but that for now, a sufficiently cowed sensei was the best solution they could hope for.

That day, he also warned them that he would have to leave for a long mission the following morning. As a member of the Torture and Interrogation force, he mostly stayed within the borders of the village's border, reading over the reports of his fellow shinobi to keep track of the world's current situation and of the threats to Konoha, he took delivery of the reports of their various spies, mostly coming from Jiraiya-sama's network, and interrogated traitors or enemies to confirm or uncover information vital to the village. T&I was, contrary to what people thought, a very large part of Konoha's Intelligence Department.

But, it happened sometimes, that there was information so sensitive that they couldn't let anyone outside the Department know of it and, thus, he had to lead a four-man team to gather the information, letting his direct leader, Yamashiro-buchō hold down the fort.

Since he had never been gone for longer than a week before, he warned them that he had asked his leader within the Division to make sure that they got enough to eat and to help them with anything should they need anything when he was gone. Yousei had been surprised that he had told anyone about them and wondered about it aloud.

"I do not often volunteer personal information to anyone without a damn good reason. Keeping you alive seems like one to me. Yamashiro-buchō is a, well..., friend of mine, and I needed someone I could trust to be responsible for Yousei should I ever disappear. I trust him with both of you and with all your secrets. He will keep his mouth shut about my private business unless directly ordered to by the Hokage or the Jounin Commander. Both usually don't care what goes on in the private life of their subordinate unless it affects their work." Ibiki explained in his deep gravely voice.

"I have kept him apprised of your medical condition. He knows that he has to hand you your pills over every day. He also promised he would help teach you about shuriken no jutsu while I am gone. However, he won't be able to help you with the chakra transformation as he doesn't trust his control to be good enough for such a job. So you'll have to wait until I am back."

"How man! And we are so close too!" Naruto whined and started pouting.

"I prefer to learn that with you anyway, otou-san." Yousei added with a smile.

"Suck-up!" Naruto mock-whispered teasingly.

"And not ashamed of it at all, na!" Yousei responded before sticking her tongue out at Naruto and going around the table to land a hug around a very surprised Ibiki who proceeded to glare the blond haired girl into submission because she couldn't stop laughing at his awkwardness in accepting the show of affection. But, soon, the tables were turned as Yousei decided to try to smother her friend with one of her hugs under the mocking face of the only adult in the room.

#

The following morning, the children woke, trained and ate on their own before morosely heading to the Academy. Fujiwara-sensei was rather subdued. Apparently, she had decided that the best way to deal with the Kyuubi brat and his minion was to simply ignore him and be scrupulously fair with him.

While she still kept her haughty look around them both, often glaring at them, she didn't attempt to sabotage Naruto for the next written and practical (they had to run two kilometers and were graded on speed, yeah, had grumbled Naruto) tests. In fact, to the ones she had already given, she had been a bit harsh but fair in her marking. The children decided not to complain and played cat's cradle while the sensei corrected it for the class. They had both aced their test.

After their afternoon training, which lasted two hours from half past four till half past six, and after doing their homework and Naruto's reading and writing exercise (she barely needed any help anymore) for an hour, they were interrupted by the sound of the entrance door.

Rushing to meet their temporary minder at the door, they greeted the young man standing still at the door and looking stunned. He was tall, but not as tall as Ibiki, and really young looking. He had dark hair held up in the hair by his slightly tilted headband and wore the standard uniform, flak vest and all that, as well as red rimmed sunglasses.

"Holy shi..." he stopped abruptly before starting again aghast. "I mean, Holy Kami! I thought he was joking! Oh shit, he really has kids! I should have known! Ibiki is not much of a joker at all but I thought maybe he had finally managed to crack a joke. And failed miserably, but what can you do without experience in being funny. Every joker has to start somewhere after all.

But kids, what the hell am going to do with kids? I'm not parent material! He must have wanted revenge because I nominated him to be a tokubetsu jounin and for the role of head of T&I! And how the hell did Ibiki manage to have a kid before me? I'm much better looking? How old are they anyway? They look like toddlers! Noooo, I don't want to change diapers!"

"Hey teme! We're not toddlers! Who the hell are you anyway?"

"It speaks!" the man said looking so surprised that Yousei started giggling while Naruto seemed even more incensed.

"If you don't leave now we're calling the police, weirdo!"

"No, kid. Calling the Uchiha police is bad, bad, B.A.D. They have absolutely no sense of humor at all. Not a funny bone in their body.

My name is Yamashiro Aoba, I am a friend of Ibiki's and he asked me to keep an eye on you.' the black-haired man explained. before mumbling: 'I was so sure he was doing a practical joke on me! And here I thought I had managed to impart some of my sense of humor to him! Looks like I failed, again!"

"No way you're Yamashiro-bucho. He is Kowai-jiji's leader so he is supposed to be old. You look barely out of your genin days!"

"So cute, you even have a nickname for him. I'll have you know I am twenty-four and three years older than Ibiki-kun. I have been leader of the T&I division for four years and I have been a jounin surely far longer than you have been alive, shrimp." Aoba-san said.

"No way you're a jounin when Ibiki's still a chuunin. You look like a wimp."

"Naruto!" Yousei tried to intervene before things could turn even more sour, but...

"You idol has only been a chuunin for so long because he joined the division, I was already in charge of, after a stint as a medical ninja in the hospital. Thus, he didn't go on enough mission outside the village to qualify as a tokubetsu jounin as he focused a lot on learning medical jutsu.

Since he didn't integrate the Medical Corps, which could and would have been able to award him with a promotion, he basically had to start from scratch in my division to rise in ranks. He spent a long learning enough about the human body, which is a very unusual and time-consuming choice, to become a top interrogator.

But now, he is a rising star in the division. And, don't worry, now that I am leaving the division, with this mission and my recommendation, he should be able to become a tokubetsu jounin, and lead T&I."

"Kowai-ojisan's getting promoted? Yatta!" Naruto exclaimed embracing her friend who responded with a smile and squeezed back.

"Now, girls,..." He said, already gaining cookie points from Yousei, for the ease with which he said girls instead of saying boys and girls. Even she had problems sometimes with keeping her friend's real gender in mind, and she had known Naruto far longer. "...I have been instructed to make you eat something, so what about, hum, miso ramen, beef ramen or pork ramen?"

"Cool, no vegetables! You're kind of cool after all ojisan!"

Yousei didn't quite as convinced as Naruto but so long as they didn't have ramen everyday, she decided that she wouldn't mind, much.

After the ramen, of which Naruto ate so much that Yousei and Aoba started looking sick, the latter offered his help as a teacher of shuriken no justu which automatically gained him the favor of his two would be students. Their enthusiasm sadly declined considerably when he spent an hour trying to get them used to the shuriken and then forced them to learn how to hold the little metal stars before allowing them trow anything.

As dusk settled in, they had only been able to throw them twice because Aoba-sensei was very meticulous about positioning and kept correcting them. However, when it came time to end for the evening and go read a book in bed, none of the children wanted to stop.


	6. Chapter 6

Ibiki was gone for two months, with Aoba-san actually making them diner sometimes and more often than not buying it at a shop somewhere and bringing it to the house. Things settled in a routine, Aoba came for diner everyday and gave them bento for lunch and, every other day, when he had some free time, he would try to spend an hour with the children to teach them. But soon, after the first month had come and gone by, Aoba's smile became a bit strained, alarming the two kids, but, he steadfastly refused to disclose anything about Ibiki.

#

It was two whole months after Ibiki had left that Aoba-san finally came back with a relieved smile to tell them that the man was back and relatively well. As it was a Sunday, he took them both to the hospital to visit. When they saw him, a doctor was taking some bandages off his face to look at the badly healing scar running across his face, parallel to the one he had gotten a long time ago.

"Making a fashion statement, otou-san?" Yousei said to try to lighten the mood up a bit. But it was so uncharacteristic of her to say such a thing that Naruto, Ibiki and Aoba all goggled at her before snickering at the profoundly mortified face that she was wearing. Soon came the rather predictable statement:

"Yeah, Ibiki, I have corrupted your daughter to the power of humor!" Aoba rejoiced on his own while the other three deadpanned.

"You have never been funny, Aoba-bucho. Come here Yousei-chan. I'm starting to regret asking him to supervise you. You too, Naruto-chan." Yousei and Naruto went to give him a light hug both acutely aware that the man was injured.

"Don't worry yourself, the only wound worth mentioning is the ugly scar on my face and it doesn't hurt anymore at..."The doctor, that everyone in the room had forgotten all about, chose that moment to cut him off.

"Maybe if you hadn't tried to heal yourself in the middle of battle, then you wouldn't have scared at all, shinobi-san."

Raising an eyebrow with difficulty but trying to make a point, Ibiki retorted: "I am a shinobi, like you so justly observed, I am not supposed to be pretty, Sen-sei. And now, I'm leaving."

"But you can't..."

"I said, I. Am. Leaving. Is that clear?" Ibiki ground out in his coldest voice.

Sufficiently cowed, the doctor agreed.

"You shouldn't scare the good doctor, Ibiki, poor man's about to have a heart attack!' Aoba couldn't help but chide 'You are giving a poor example to your little innocent kids."

"I am showing them that when one wants something in life, one has to show some assurance."

With Ibiki back, things went back to normal with the, more often than not, welcome addition of Aoba who came by at least once every couple of weeks and the usual training resumed itself with some shuriken no jutsu added to the mix.

#

Three months after his return, Yousei managed to mold chakra on her own for the very first time. Although elated for her closest friend, Naruto was a bit down for a day or two before starting to train chakra molding with renewed fervor and managed to do it a few days later. Ibiki congratulated them both with warmth before bringing them down by teasingly telling them that it was just the beginning.

And, with them having gotten this chakra transformation down pat, for the next month or so, he made them learn, under very close supervision, how to expel small bouts of molded chakra out of their body. It was their first real chakra training exercise and helped them learn to control it.

It was both easier and harder than it looked. Expelling molded chakra was just a matter of giving it a sort of a mental push. But, controlling the amount to emit was hard. With a small push, you created a never-ending wave of chakra. To avoid chakra exhaustion and subsequently, death, you had to cut of the source the chakra leak by forcibly holding the molded chakra back and putting a mental dam on it. It certainly wasn't easy.

For Naruto, it was less dangerous since she had much larger reserves than Yousei but it took an immense effort from her part to hold back the flood of chakra that tried to escape every time she gave it even the smallest, tiniest, push she could manage. Ibiki had a hard time putting an artificial barrier strong enough to help Naruto while she learned how to do it on her own.

For Yousei, on the other hand, while she had surprisingly large reserve for the now seven years old, it was nothing the recently promoted tokubetsu jounin couldn't handle.

#

Just as they finally managed to master this stage, the Academy gave them a month holiday in August and Saionji-sensei warned Naruto that he had to stop using chakra for a week to avoid her messing up the jutsu with bouts of uncontrolled chakra at the most inopportune time.

To show her support to the increasingly nervous and thus, loud girl, Yousei refused to train alone. Since Naruto was also restricted on the amount of physical training she could do, they tried to amuse themselves by playing quietly some go and shogi which Ibiki had painstakingly tried to teach the girls.

As it certainly was not their idea of fun, especially Naruto, they were all especially glad when the end of the week neared. On the upside, Naruto was so impatient to start training again that she had forgotten to be anxious.

#

Saionji-sensei had explained that the medication had prepared Naruto's cells for the transformation slowly bringing out the chromosomes expressing on the X gene so that they were more prominent and slowly repressing the Y genes. It had also given her a partially inactive virus, which had brought her immune system a bit down (she hadn't noticed anything because of the fox but Saionji-sensei didn't say that aloud), and affected all her cells.

During the operation, he explained, the seals would activate the rest of the virus which would then replicate the X gene on all her chromosomes while erasing the partially repressed Y gene. The newly-changed chromosomes would then replicate and create new cells to replace all her former ones at a speed so quick that the physical changes would seem almost instantaneous. The seal would also serve as a support Naruto's body so it didn't disintegrate (everyone blanched at that but didn't say mum).

The medical chakra Saionji-sensei would slowly leak into the array would then help relieve the stress Naruto's body would be under and it stop any chances of the new cells falling apart. It was actually a lot more complicated than that but, he explained that it was the only explanation that dumb-witted people like them could understand.

#

The operation in itself was a bit anticlimactic. When they had entered the sealing chamber that the Iryō-nin had in his medical practice, part of a huge sealing array was already drawn on the ground. He directed Naruto to take of her clothes and head toward the center of the array. He covered her in a white sheet to protect her nudity and finished the array, even drawing small seals on her body. It took a long time and Yousei couldn't help but wonder how Naruto was managing to stay so still for so long.

The array was a work of art, the result of precise strokes, long practice and a lot of work. Yousei looked at the signs and couldn't make any sense out of them of any of them. She wondered how long it would take to master sealing and medical chakra to such an extent. Both took extremely long to learn, were hard to master and necessitated both high intelligence and high perseverance but mostly the latter.

Yousei knew herself well-enough to know that as much as the idea of mastering both arts appealed to her presently, she didn't have the necessary courage and the necessary mental capacity to learn and master them. While she was intelligent enough, she just didn't work that way. She didn't have the single-mindedness necessary to achieve a reasonable mastery in any of the two fields, let alone both.

Concentrating again on the Iryō-nin, she could see that he had finished drawing the seals and was slowly gathering medical chakra to activate the array. He pushed his chakra into the seal in a burst. It started to glow slightly before becoming blinding.

#

When Yousei could look at the middle of the room where Naruto was again, she didn't see anything different about Naruto but Saionji-sensei had almost collapsed on the spot but managed to gesture that it was okay to go see the newly-transformed girl. While Yousei ran to her friend's side, Ibiki went to help the old man to a chair. Naruto was fast asleep.

Curious, Yousei took a look under the white sheet cover. Yep, it had worked. In fact, now that she could have a closer look, she could see that his face had altered ever so slightly. But, truthfully, the difference was so faint, that were it not for the obvious physical difference hidden under the blanket, she wouldn't have noticed anything was different with her friend.

While Ibiki was talking to the medic-nin to make certain everything had gone as planned, she concentrated on the Naruto's chakra. It did seem more calm than before. She wondered if it would affect her friend's personality. Ibiki helped the doctor to a bed in an adjoined room before coming back to pick the blond up and bringing them all home. As he laid her out on her bed in their home, the little girl woke up for an instant and told Yousei and Ibiki:

'I'm going to be an awesome Fūin-master and Iryō-nin one day. Dattebayo!'

#

The few days following the toransu seibetsu moofu no justu were hard on Naruto. She could barely wake up enough to eat at regular intervals and even then, she was tired and felt vulnerable as hell. Despite the hormones she had taken for a long time, she still wasn't used to the way her body differed to her old one.

But every day, she said she could feel more in control and generally better. When she woke up on the fifth day after the operation, she looked to be in great shape and when Saionji-sensei visited to check on her, she told him that she felt great, never better in fact. It showed, she glowed. Well, not literally but it was close.

#

While Naruto recovered, Yousei had started to read an introduction to medical jutsu and another one to sealing. She wasn't all that interested in the subject herself, but she knew the value of knowing a bit about each subject in order to be a successful ninja. Also, she knew that Naruto was pig-headed and now that he had decided he wanted to learn both subjects, she wanted to be able to help her learn.

Naruto didn't learn all that well by reading books. She did considerably better now that she could read but she still found it boring. Yousei was sure that pure pigheadedness would push her to read all the books in the world necessary to achieve her recently discovered goal, but it wouldn't hurt if she got a head-start by having someone explain the new concept at first.

Truthfully, Yousei wasn't completely confident in her friend's ability to reach her goal and thought it would change with time. But, she wouldn't be the one to say anything to try to discourage her friend and, she would do all she could to help her.

#

The next year, passed slowly and without any incident. Naruto was now eight and Yousei turned nine in December. Naruto was a tomboy instead of a boy and she loved it that way. She hadn't changed her gender to act more feminine but to make her gender and her sex match and to feel better when looking at herself.

Fujiwara-sensei continued to be both unfailingly polite and fair in her dealing with the girls. She still shot them glares every other day, when she actually remembered that she was supposed to hate them. But mostly, she forgot about them. Still, when their grades started slipping because they stopped doing homework, listening in classes or generally doing anything school related, she smiled cruelly to them. In fact, she was elated when they both dropped to the bottom of class rankings even though both girls couldn't care less.

Ibiki, knowing the truth about their ability and knowledge didn't say anything and since they couldn't be held back without their consent, it didn't matter much in the end.

#

They took the time they were supposed to listen to the sensei's lecture or do exams to learn more about basic medical knowledge, basic sealing, and basic ninjutsu theory. With Naruto so entranced by medical knowledge and sealing, Yousei learned about them to be able to talk with her friend about it but she didn't spent nearly as much time on it as the blond. She liked sealing well enough but hated all medical things with a passion. Still, she persevered in both fields, at least, even if she hated medical stuff. She acknowledged both their usefulness too much to disregard them.

Yousei also made sure to read the school books to make sure to teach, at home, to Naruto, anything the latter might really need to be a smart ninja. She only taught her friends the most useful things, leaving out the rest, knowing Naruto wasn't really interested.

She made sure both of them could more than keep up in maths (which was needed for sealing), history, economics, codes, vital information about the different village, tactics,... It wasn't anything very advanced yet so it didn't take all that long to learn and now that Naruto had a purpose, she assimilated the material quickly so she could go back to study the human body and her seals. Yousei, who was much more interested in those things, spent longer reading up about it.

#

Their third year at the ninja school was the year Naruto should have entered. Yousei was eight and a half while Naruto would turn eight in a month. The Academy started them on learning to mold chakra. Already knowing how to do it, the girls skipped the mandatory sessions with Fujiwara-sensei's assistant teacher, Karube-sensei. Ibiki had given Yousei a note exempting her from these lesson and Karube-sensei hated Naruto with a passion and was glad when she didn't show up for class.

The Academy's physical conditioning also increased to start the children. They taught the kids a few moves and immediately pitted the children against each other to make them learn by doing. Naruto and Yousei weren't exactly impressed with the method and decided to ditch this class too.

The sensei also started them on shuriken no jutsu but once again, the girls were ahead. Not caring about class rankings, they decided to skip these classes to. Finally, the other big difference were the field trips. Fujiwara-sensei took her class on field trips first on training grounds and then outside the village. Naruto and Yousei had gone on the first trips in the village.

But it looked more like picnics and games than real survival training at this point that when they complained to Ibiki, he agreed to teach them. Every once in a while, when he had a bit of time, he took them in some of the weirdest training grounds that existed inside the village for a few days and taught them all they needed to know. So they skipped those at the Academy as well. In fact, they only went to school in order to still be considered students there.

#

Their physical training became harder as the drills Ibiki made them do increased in difficulty and, as they strove to improve their speed and strength. Every day, they trained by making the drills they had learned over and over again for four hours.

They stretched a lot in various poses, perfected their feeling of balance and Ibiki had them start fighting against him. He explained that one of the hardest thing to do in battle was not to make impressive moves but to learn to react well and intelligently.

This new exercise consisted of Ibiki attacking one of the girl in slow motion and waiting for her to respond in the best way possible with her arsenal of moves. When he struck high, for example, he expected them to use his momentum to take his hand and throw him to the ground. When he kicked low, he expected them to string together a jump and a speedy aerial attack.

Slowly, he increased the difficulty of the move he made, trained them to expect the unexpected, to read an opponent and as soon as they got better, he would increase his speed. He absolutely refused that the girls fight each other. He justified this by saying that he didn't want them to develop bad habits by fighting against an unskilled opponent. He added that, at their level, they would learn to counter moves by taking the easy way out, which would not work against a more skilled opponent.

#

The girls also stepped up their chakra control exercise, slowly trying to master the chakra control. To reach this point, they had to spend a long time learning to do mold various amount of chakra first. Molding a specific amount of chakra and then replicating the feat was especially difficult at first for Yousei, but she had been aware of her chakra for so long and her sensing skills were so good that in less than a couple of month, she had gained sufficient control over her chakra to learn her first jutsu according to her otou-san.

But, before she could do any of this, she had to learn and master all the twelves seals at a sufficient speed, he added. Ninja all too often became complacent about their hand-seal's speed once they started learning techniques. They could master a technique at a speed that would leave others stupefied while demonstrating less than average speed for their less used, and often really useful, techniques.

He did show her the tree walking technique and then the water walking technique to further her chakra control and her reserves. It left her wondering why no one had ever tried to walk on air. Hum, it was a thought for later. She had mastered both chakra exercises and learned all the hand seals while achieving a decent speed by the end of the school year. Yousei was nine and a half.

#

Naruto, on the other hand, found it even more difficult than Yousei to gain control of her chakra, but as soon as Ibiki said she could train it without his supervision, she had started to train relentlessly her control.

Every day, from the morning till the evening, with a single-mindedness that both impressed and worried Yousei, she could be seen training her chakra, molding various amounts and trying to get a good feel of her chakra and its amount before trying to replicate specific amounts. She would try to exercise while doing different activities like reading, meditating, doing chores,...which Ibiki said would help her later on.

Multitasking became second nature for her and improved her concentration skill by leaps and bounds. In the end, she actually managed to improve so much that Ibiki deemed her ready to attempt the chakra exercises he had already shown his daughter, by the end of the school year. All her work paid off when she easily learned and then mastered both exercises before her ninth birthday. She also used her hard-earned discipline to learn and master the hand-seals by then.

#

Yousei was actually a bit jealous at that, she trained hard and learned quickly but she couldn't seem to be able to keep up with Naruto. While the blond needed a lot of help to master the basic, once she did that, she could easily overtake the red-headed. It was a bit frustrating at times that despite her head-start, Naruto could reach her level so quickly.

But, she couldn't begrudge the younger girl for her hard-earned and well-deserved skills. Yousei simply couldn't spend her whole time learning and learning. She needed other occupations like reading about the world, psychology, tactics and even novels, adventure books, or even dancing sometimes,...

Sometimes, she was even worried a bit about Naruto's apparent obsession with training but she concluded that as long as her otou-san wasn't worried, then she wouldn't be either. And, as long as Naruto was willing to stop training to play silly games with her, she was happy.

#

After entering their third year in the Academy and around Naruto's ninth birthday, both girls started to learn the three E-ranked ninjutsu. With their hard-earned chakra control, it went much easier than they thought. They hadn't completely realized the progress they had made in this field.

The first they learned was the henge no Jutsu as it was the easiest to learn. It was a simple matter of expelling bare amounts of chakra while keeping a firm image of the desired person or object you wanted to turn into in mind. The chakra emitted some sort of wave around the body thus distorting the air around the person and creating an illusion.

#

Keeping the illusion running was just a matter of continuing to expel chakra. The first burst of chakra creating the illusion usually looked like smoke before the illusion could be formed. Those who mastered the ability completely and had extremely good chakra control, could transform, or, more accurately create an illusion, without the release of smoke, but it took a long time to reach that level and it wasn't really useful.

The second jutsu they learned was the kawarimi no jutsu. For this jutsu, you had to extend your chakra out of your body while keeping it in control, attach it to an object and pull. To do so, it was easier to exchange with an object of equal mass. But with practice and good chakra control, you could use the chakra to either replace the lacking mass to exchange with a smaller object or attract a bigger object. Well done, the exchange could look instantaneous and was a good evasion technique.

The third jutsu was a sort of combination of the skills used by both previous technique. The Bunshin no Jutsu necessitated to continuously expel very little chakra outside of the body while making it emit waves of chakra to keep an illusion running. Too much and the illusion failed miserably, to little and nothing happened.

With their skills in chakra control, learning the two techniques took barely took any time at all, although both, and especially Naruto, had to keep training every day to keep their mastery over their chakra since their reserves were constantly growing at an impressive rate.

#

While they were learning these techniques, the Academy had slowly increased their training. Most children in their class were now able to have a modicum of control over their chakra and were learning the chakra concentrating leaf exercise. Physical training, consisting of shuriken no jutsu and taijutsu, took now place every day for two hours with the two chuunin-sensei supervising.

More survival training camps were offered. But still, the two girls didn't make any effort to go to the Academy but for the barest amount of time, which was four hours each day and during which, they did their own things in the back of the classroom. A situation both the teacher and the assistant teacher were rather pleased with.

#

In November, a month before Yousei's tenth birthday, their life and comfortable routine were disrupted by a tragedy. The Uchiha massacre made them take their head out of training and take an interest on what was happening outside.

They learned that something had happened when, one day, a worried clone of Ibiki came running home to tell them not to leave the house under any circumstances and then proceeded to put the building on lockdown, activating the strongest stage of the seal barrier around the estate.

They were only allowed to leave two days later when Ibiki finally managed to make it home. He explained that Uchiha Itachi had gone off the deep-end and killed his whole family except for his little brother. They were so horrified by what had happened that when they were allowed to return to the Academy, they went looking for the last loyal Uchiha to see who he was.

They had not mixed with their own class at all. There were representatives of many clans in their class but there had not been one of the Uchiha clan and since they didn't mingle with kids of other classes any more than they did with their own, they hadn't known anyone from that clan.

So, because they were curious, at recess, one day, they kept an eye out for the last Uchiha left in Konoha. They found him in the middle of a fawning group of girl who apparently found him sooo cool and sooo mysterious even if he seriously looked constipated, raged Naruto. It made Yousei despair for the future of Konoha's kunoichi.

#

At the edge of the group, they could see another mob. Curious as to what was happening there, they approached it. Frowning, Yousei could see that the group had been jeering at a pink-haired girl.

The leader, a nine years old girl with light purple hair, had left with her followers. Shooting a look at her best friend, Yousei tried to say that it wasn't any of their business and that the incident was finished so they should leave. But, before she could do so, Naruto had dashed and jumped in front of the mob's leader saying:

"It's so easy to hurt others when you have so many people around you baka-imi (mean idiot). But can you take me on without your little icky friends? Hein?" And the purple-haired girl answered fiercely:

"Anytime, anywhere you want, bitch!"

"Then, I chose now." Naruto answered with a huge and cold grin

"Alright, Nanako-chan will referee" The purple-head responded pointing to another girl in the crowd. The two girls placed themselves in front of one another, tried to intimidate each other before...

"HAJIME" (begin)

The purple-head tried to run toward her adversary, but Naruto was faster, in an instant, she ran for few step and using her momentum threw one of her legs from the back to the front while turning on herself to land a whirlwind kick on the girl. Before the latter could fall, and still using her momentum, Naruto swept the ground with her leg, tripping the girl and sending her to the floor. The blond was on her in an instant asking her to yield which she did grudgingly.

"Winner the blond-haired girl!"

The pink-haired girl that Yousei had been helping in the meantime came close to the one who had been insulting her moments beforehand to give her a kick on the ground.

"Not so cocky anymore now are you?" The girl said before running away, crying, without even thanking the ones who had helped her out.

"Wow, not only is she a looser, but she is a mean one!" Yousei said, after a moment of looking at pinky's back, in a smartaleck voice, shocking Naruto before making her laugh. Hearing the laugh coming from the girl on the ground and seeing that all her friends had left them alone, Naruto stretched her hand out to help the girl stand up and the two friends took a good look at her.

She was obviously their age and had striking purple hair styled in an asymmetrical cut. Her light brown eyes were huge in her round face and she wore a striped dress cut vertically on the sides over a T-shirt and standard blue shinobi pants.

"Name's Amy, Hayate Ami. And you're right, Sakura, the pink-haired girl, isn't very confident for a shinobi and she can be a mean know-it-all sometimes. And then, she wonders why people pick on her."

"It's still not very nice to do so." Yousei remarked

"No, it's not. Never pretended to be a nice girl. She lords her book smarts over us like it's going to make her the best kunoichi of all time. I don't like her and I don't like taking it without responding. Never pretended to be a saint! So who're you? Never seen you around much. What class are you in?"

"We are in the first class of third years." Yousei answered quietly.

"You got in early? Lucky girls! I wanted to do the same but okaa-san was against it. Still hoping to graduate early though. Academy's boring."

"That's sooo true!" Naruto exclaimed while jumping in place "If we didn't have to be in class, we could train so much more!"

"Aint' that the truth, you're preaching to the choir here. I only go because I really have to, otherwise I would skip and go bother my okaa-san's cousin. She's cool. Scary, but really awesome. Or I would go bug my uncle to teach me kenjutsu. He's really good to, but a bit of a wuss..." Naruto had started to laugh at Ami's word

"You're really funny. Want to be friends?" The blond stretched her hand out to give the other girl a handshake.

"Could be fun, if you are as good as you say, we could train to pass the exams together and then we could become the first all-girls team of Konoha. We'd kick ass!" Yousei said, starting to get enthusiastic about her own words.

There were two very different expressions of approval from Naruto and Ami:

"Hell yeah!/Why not?"

"Cool" Yousei concluded.

And then they were three.


End file.
